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LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


PRINCETON,     N.    J. 


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From  the  Steel  Kngruvliig  niude  m   1H47 


THE  PIONEERS 


Reformed  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  North  America. 


H.  J.  RuETENiK,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 


CLEVELAND,  OHIO: 

Central 'Publishing  House,   1134-1138  Pearl  St. 

1901. 


Copyright,  1901, 

Central  Publishing  House  of  the  Reformed  Church, 

1134-1138  Pearl  St.,  Cleveland,  O. 


INTRODUCTION. 

In  1899  the  author  was  invited  to  prepare  for  the 
Reformed  Assembly  a  paper  on  the  Pioneers  of  the 
Reformed  Church  in  the  United  States.  Upon  setting 
to  work  he  found  such  an  abundance  of  valuable  ma- 
terial in  Dr.  J.  I.  Good's  History  of  the  Reformed 
Church  in  the  United  States  from  1725-1792,  and  in 
some  other  works  of  minor  importance,  that  he  became 
deeply  interested  in  his  task,  and  felt  constrained  to 
put  it  into  the  more  permanent  form  of  a  little  book 
so  arranged  as  to  bring  out  clearly  and  prominently 
the  most  important  facts  and  the  most  efficient  men  of 
this  period,  the  Genesis  of  the  American  Reformed 
("German)  Church. 

From  past  experience  present  duties  are  learned  by 
the  church  as  well  as  by  men.  A  careful  study  of 
God's  dealings  with  men  is  most  helpful  in  forming  a 
correct  conception  of  God's  purposes  with  them.  It  is 
not  only  that  people  thus  learn  to  magnify  the  goodness 
of  God,  and  His  mysterious  indwelling  in  His  Church, 
but  they  are  also  led  to  obtain  a  better  insight  into 
Christ's  purposes  with  that  particular  branch  of  the 
church,  with  which  they  stand  connected  and  to 
which  they  owe  their  loyal  allegiance. 

The  visible  church,  it  is  true,  falls  far  short  of  sinless 
perfection.  The  truthful  historian  has  to  chronicle  many 


shortcomings  and  failures  incident  upon  her  noble 
labors.  Her  best  men  are  no  better  than  David  or 
Peter  or  Paul.  But  if  we  cannot  always  be  proud  of 
our  church,  we  have  always  good  reason  to  be  grateful 
for  what  God  worked  through  our  forefathers.  If 
hero-worship  is  not  to  be  cultivated,  there  still  remains 
the  sacred  duty  of  honoring  father  and  mother,  the 
first  command  that  has  promise. 

The  Chinese  deify  their  ancestors,  and — stagnate. 
The  impious  of  all  nations  despise  them,  and — drift 
away.  The  wise  build  on  the  foundations  laid  by  them, 
and — raise  "each  temple"  nearer  to  heaven. 

May  this  bocJt  with  all  its  imperfections — and  they 
are  seen  by  no  one  more  clearly  than  by  its  author — 
afford  some  help  to  all  who  desire  to  love  their  church, 
not  blindly,  but  sincerely  and  intelligently. 

The  author's  thanks  are  due  to  Prof.  W.  J.  Hinke,  so 
favorably  known  for  the  accuracy  and  conscientious- 
ness of  his  researches,  who  very  kindly  consented  to 
revise  the  historical  data. 

October,  1901.  The  Author. 


CONTENTS. 

Page. 

I.  THE  PIETISTS 7-27 

The  Siegen  Country 7.-  g 

Job.  Heinrich  Haegener's  Colony 8-  9 

The  Palatinate 0-12 

The  Mohawk  and  the  Swatara 12-13 

Infialapsarianism 13-16 

Pietism  and  Catechism 16-17 

Guldin's  Conversion 17-20 

Guldin  in  Philadelphia 20-23 

J.  H.  Goetschi 23-25 

Joh.  Peter  Mueller 25-29 

II.  THE  MORAVIANS 30-54 

Zinzendorf's  Principles.     The  Tropes 30-32 

Old  Friends  and  Arrival  of  Zinzendorf. 32-38 

John  Bechtel,  Inspector.     Reformed  Tropus 38-39 

The  New  Catechism 39-41 

The  Reaction  Setting  in 41-42 

John  Phil.  Boehm,  the  Schoolmaster 42-45 

John  Phil.  Boehm,  the  Church  Organizer 45-47 

John  Phil.  Boehm  and  Weiss 47-50 

John  Phil.  Boehm  against  Zinzendorf. 50-53 

End  of  the  Reformed  Tropus 53-54 

III.  THE  DEPUTIES  AND  MICHAEL  SCHLATTER 56-86 

Weiss  and  ReiflF  in  Holland 55-56 

Missionary  Spirit  in  the  Dutch  Church 56-67 

Fifteen  Years  of  waiting 57-60 

Schlatter's  Youth 60-62 

The  Visitator 62-63 

Work  done  in  1746 64-67 

The  First  Coetus 67-69 

The  Second  Coetus 69-72 

Schlatter  against  Boehm 72-74 

The  Philadelphia  Congregation  against  Schlatter 74-77 

Schlatter  in  Holland,  Switzerland,  and  Herborn 77-79 

The  Crash.— Weiss's  Knd 80-83 


III.  THE  DEPUTIES  AND  MICHAEL  SCHLATTER  (Continued.) 

Page. 
The  Charity  Schools 83-85 

Schlatter's  End , 85-8« 

IV.  THE  REVIVALS 87-109 

The  Mission  of  Methodism 87-  88 

Otterbein's  Youth 88-  90 

The  Lancaster  Congregation 90-   91 

Otterbein's  Consecration 92-  94 

Tulpehocken,  Frederick,  and  York 94-  97 

The  Baltimore  Congregation 97-100 

Martin  Boehm 100-101 

The  Big  Meetings 101 

The  Antietam  Meetings 101-103 

Otterbein's  End 103-105 

Alb.  Conr.  HelflFenstein's  Consecration 105-106 

Alb.  Conr.  Helflfenstein's  Sermons 106-108 

S.  C.  Stahlschmidt 108-109 

V.  INDEPENDENCE 110 

Estrangement  of  the  Coetus  from  the  Deputies 110-111 

Declaration  of  Independence 111-112 

Reflections 113-114 

The  Immoral  Independents,  Spangenberg,  Weickel, 

Vandersloot 114-117 

The  Good  Independents.     J.  S.  Zubly 117-120 

Lists  and  Names 120-123 

Conclusion 121-123 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Hochstadt 45 

Ref.  Church  at  Worms 45 

The  Linzebuel  Church 64 

The  Ref.  Church  at  Philadelphia 64 

Weinheim 80 

Eppingen  80 

Schlatter's  Home 86 

Ordination  of  a  Minister  in  Amsterdam ...113 

The  Cloister  Reformed  Church  at  the  Hague 113 


I.     THE  PIETISTS. 

The  first  German  Reformed  congregation  in  North 
America  was  organized  in  Virginia,  in  17 14,  by  Siegen 
people. 

The  principality  of  Siegen,  Stilling's  home,  at  that 
time  was  one  of  the  many  petty  sovereignties  consti- 
tuting the  German  empire.  It  was  a  mountainous 
country,  not  far  from  the  lower  Rhine,  and  was  inhab- 
ited by  a  poor  but  intelligent  population. 

It  is  true,  they  lived  somewhat  isolated,  and  did  not 
come  in  contact  very  freely  with  the  big  bustling  world. 
Trade  and  industries  in  our  times  considered  absolutely 
necessary  to  higher  civilization,  were  not  carried  on  to 
any  considerable  extent.  But  they  were  deeply  inter- 
ested in  religion ;  the  number  of  converted  persons  was 
quite  large  among  them;  they  were  studying  their 
Bibles  carefully  and  regularly ;  they  were  truly  enlight- 
ened by  the  Holy  Spirit  dwelling  in  them  and  in  their 
congregations.  And  they  were  kept  from  stagnation  by 
frequent  intercourse  with  the  pious  circles  in  neigh- 
boring countries.  New  ideas  were  constantly  conveyed 
to  them  by  spiritually  minded  visitors  coming  from 
far  and  near,  and  thus  a  lively  interest  in  the  woes  and 
joys  of  Christendom  everywhere  was  fostered. 

Their  princes  being  of  the  house  of  Orange,  and 
their  religion  being  the  Reformed,  there  naturally  was 

7 


The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


much  intercourse  between  Siegen  and  Holland,  where 
at  that  time  great  revivals  were  going  on,  brought  on 
by  the  earnest  preaching  of  men  like  Lodenstein, 
Labadie.and  others,  during  the  terrible  devastations 
with  which  bigoted  Louis  XIV.  visited  the  Nether- 
lands. 

Here  it  happened  that  Pastor  John  Henry  F. 
Haegcncr,  of  Fischbach,  heard  of  Gov.  Spottswood,  the 
Virginian,  inviting  miners  to  settle  in  his  province  for 
the  development  of  its  mining  resources,  and  in  171 1 
he  started  to  go  there  with  twelve  families,  all  expert 
in  the  mining  carried  on  extensively  in  Siegen.  In  1714 
they  settled  on  the  Rapidan  river,  at  what  is  now 
called  Germanford,  in  Virginia. 

It  so  happened  that,  in  November,  17 15,  a  traveler, 
John  Fontain,  passing  through  that  part  of  Virginia, 
spent  a  few  days  with  them,  and  afterward  published 
an  account  of  what  he  had  seen.  He  describes  their 
settlement  as  a  fortified  place  palisaded  with  stakes 
thick  enough  to  resist  a  musket  shot,  and  driven  in 
close  together.  He  found  nine  houses  within,  for  so 
many  families,  all  built  in  one  line,  with  sheds  for  their 
hens  and  pigs  about  twenty  feet  from  each  house,  all 
in  line  with  the  dwellings.  In  the  center  of  the  enclos- 
ure there  stood  a  large  blockhouse,  for  a  retreat  and 
citadel  in  case  hostile  Indians  should  succeed  in  forc- 
ing the  stockade.  Its  walls  were  loopholed  for  muskets. 

Fontain  called  at  the  pastor's  house  for  a  lodging, 
and  was  there  given  some  good  straw  to  sleep  on,  but 
he  had  nothing  to  eat;  there  was  no  food  suitable  for 


The  Pietists. 


him  in  the  house,  nor  in  the  whole  settlement,  and  he 
had  to  depend  on  his  own  provisions  brought  along. 
But  the  bread  of  life  was  not  wanting.  That  strong 
house  in  the  center  was  not  built  for  Indian  warfare 
only,  it  also  was  their  spiritual  stronghold  for  pro- 
tection against  the  lowness  of  spirit,  not  to  say  despair, 
that  could  not  fail  to  darken  their  souls  in  the  solitude 
of  a  trackless  wilderness,  without  all  the  accustomed 
comforts  of  life,  with  hunger  and  cold,  with  the  hard- 
est of  unprofitable  work.  Once  every  day  the  colonists 
met  here  to  find  comfort  and  spiritual  strength  in 
prayer  and  psalmody;  on  Sundays  two  services  were 
held.  Their  German  exercises  were  not  understood  by 
the  visitor,  but  their  spirit  was  felt.  He  says  they  ap- 
peared very  devout,  and  joined  most  heartily  in  the 
singing  of  psalms. 

In  the  year  1719,  when  Pastor  Haegener  had  grown 
old,  and  his  son,  who  had  taken  orders  in  the  Episcopal 
church,  could  not  minister  to  their  wants,  they  sent  one 
of  their  number,  J.  C.  Zollikofer,  to  Germany,  who 
inserted  an  appeal  for  a  pastor  in  a  newspaper  pub- 
lished in  Frankfurt  A.  M.  But  nothing  came  of  it. 
Finally  they  abandoned  their  colony,  because  the  gover- 
nor of  Virginia  refused  to  give  them  legal  titles  to 
their  land.  Schlatter  found  them,  twenty-five  years 
later,  in  Germantown,  Fauquier  Co.,  Va. 

These  people  did  not  owe  their  religion  to  America, 
but  America  is  indebted  to  them  for  bringing  it  along 
from  their  home  in  Germany,  which  at  that  time  was  a 
stronghold  of  Reformed  life.  The  Palatinate  with  its 


10 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

university  at  Heidelberg,  the  cradle  of  German  relig- 
ious freedom  founded  on  Free  Grace,  had  fallen  into 
other  hands,  but  its  treasure  had  been  transferred  to 
Herborn  in  the  Lower  Rhine  region.  Here  Ursinus, 
the  brains,  and  Olevianus,  the  heart  of  Reformed  doc- 
trine, after  they  had  been  driven  from  Heidelberg, 
taught  Christ,  the  source  of  true  life,  and  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, the  standard  of  true  doctrine.  And  independently 
of  their  work,  all  along  the  lower  Rhine  from  Wesel 
upward  to  Frankfurt,  Reformed  congregations  had 
been  built  up  by  refugees  from  England,  from  France, 
and  from  Holland,  men  who  had  loved  the  Kingdom 
of  God  better  than  their  country.  When  their  govern- 
ment would  force  them  to  worship  God  in  what  they 
felt  convinced  to  be  an  unscriptural  and  unholy  form, 
they  had  turned  their  backs  on  homes  as  sweet  and  a5 
dear  to  their  hearts  as  ours  are  to  us.  The  new  congre- 
gations thus  formed  in  their  German  exile  were  by 
them  named  the  Churches  under  the  Cross.  No  golden 
crosses,  it  is  true,  glittered  from  their  steeples ;  but  the 
cross  planted  and  rooted  in  their  hearts  was  reflecting 
so  bright  and  kindly  a  light,  that  many  of  their  Ger- 
man neighbors  were  attracted  by  it  and  united  with  the 
Church  under  the  Cross.  In  this  way  the  stanch  Re- 
formed Churches  of  the  Lower  Rhine  had  been  estab- 
lished, which  to  this  day  are  towers  of  strength  and 
beacons  of  light  in  Jesus  Christ.  Peter  Minuit,  the  first 
good  governor  of  New  Amsterdam,  had  come  from 
them,  and  later  on  many  of  their  elect  followed. 

They  loved  liberty,  not  in  lawless  license,  but    in 


The  Pietists. 11 

Christ,  who  can  make  men  free  indeed,  since  He  was 
obedient  to  death,  even  to  the  death  on  the  cross.  Such 
freedom  made  them  worthy  of  citizenship  in  this  new 
world,  which  God  in  His  wisdom  for  many  centuries 
had  hidden  from  European  civilization  with  its  kings 
and  popes,  until  the  time  was  fulfilled,  when  the  Re- 
formation began  to  bring  out  the  full  stature  of  man- 
hood in  Christ,  adult  Christianity  so  to  speak,  weaned 
from  the  leading-strings  of  childhood.  Christendom  in 
the  new  world  was  not  to  be  hampered  by  the  institu- 
tions and  traditions  of  the  pre-reformation  age.  Its 
liberty  must  luxuriate  in  virgin  soil. 

But  although  Lower  Rhineland  was  the  first  to  send 
a  few  of  her  best  children  to  the  land  of  freedom.  Up- 
per Rhineland  soon  sent  ten  thousands  of  people  not 
to  be  despised  either.  Here  was  the  Palatinate  with  its 
vineclad  hills  and  its  waving  wheat  fields,  the  home  of 
the  Heidelberg  catechism  testifying  to  the  christian's 
personal  experience  of  guilt  and  misery  as  well  as  of 
salvation  found  and  felt,  and  the  home  of  Frederik  HI, 
who  alone  in  the  Great  Diet  of  Catholic  and  Lutheran 
dignitaries  confessed  his  Reformed  convictions  "even 
if  it  should  cost  him  a  cap  full  of  blood." 

His  house  had  been  blessed  of  God,  until  Frederick  V. 
became  king  of  Bohemia  and  was  on  the  point  of  mak- 
ing the  Reformed  Church  the  leading  one  in  Germany. 
But  he  failed  most  miserably,  and  Ichabod  was  written 
over  the  doors  of  her  temples  and  palaces.  Then  came 
the  war  of  thirty  years,  and  the  rule  of  Roman  Catholic 
electors,  and  the  intrigues  of  Jesuits,  and  finally  Louis 


1 2  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

XIV.  of  France  sent  Melac  with  fire  and  sword  to  re- 
duce the  cities  to  ruins  and  the  fields  to  a  wilderness. 

But  man's  necessity  is  God's  opportunity.  To  the 
Palatinate  church  lying  in  her  blood  by  the  wayside  he 
said:  "Thou  shalt  live."  Fifteen  thousand  Palatines  fled 
down  the  Rhine  to  Holland,  and  thence  to  England. 
Encamping  in  the  outskirts  of  London,  they  were  cared 
for  by  Queen  Anne  and  by  noble-minded  Englishmen ; 
even  the  savage  Mohawk  chiefs  from  the  province  of 
New  York,  who  at  that  time  were  staying  in  London, 
befriended  them  and  invited  them  to  their  fertile  lands 
on  the  jNIohawk,  up  the  Hudson  river. 

About  three  thousand  of  these  Palatines  were  trans- 
ported to  the  province  of  Xew  York,  but  were  there 
held  in  severe  servitude.  A  large  portion  of  them  then 
made  their  way  to  the  Mohawk,  but  after  they  had 
cleared  their  fields,  were  told  that  they  could  not  own 
their  lands.  Once  more  they  then  arose,  and  hearing  of 
Penn's  just  and  liberal  rule  in  Pennsylvania,  they 
placed  themselves  under  the  guidance  of  Conrad 
Weiser,  one  of  their  own  young  men  who  had  made 
friends  of  the  Indians.  He  guided  them  over  the  moun- 
tains to  the  sources  of  the  Susquehanna,  down  which 
river  they  floated  with  their  cattle  and  household 
goods,  until  they  reached  the  beautiful  banks  of  the 
Swatara.  Here  at  last  they  found  a  permanent  home 
where  the  swallow  could  build  her  nest  and  rear  her 
young.  In  the  course  of  time,  many  thousands  of 
their  friends  followed  them,  and  Eastern  Pennsylvania 
became  the  new  home  of    the    Reformed    Palatinate 


The  Pietists.  13 


church.  More  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  the  electors 
of  the  Palatinate  following  the  Reformed  instincts  of 
tolerance,  had  offered  an  asylum  to  the  Mennonites, 
whom  neither  Catholic  nor  Lutheran  would  tolerate  in 
their  lands.  Now  the  Quakers  paid  back  the  debt  of 
gratitude  for  their  fellow  sectarians  and  verified  God's 
promise:  "Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters,  and  after 
many  years  thou  shalt  find  it  again,"  Eccl.  xi:i. 

Rhineland  begins  in  Switzerland  and  ends  in  Hol- 
land, and  the  whole  basin,  from  the  snowclad  Alps  to 
the  seawashed  dykes,  teams  with  an  industrious  and 
liberty-loving  population,  the  light  and  the  salt  of 
which  are  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Reformed 
Church  that  give  tone  and  character  to  its  life.  Nor 
were  they  to  prove  a  blessing  at  home  only ;  they  were 
also  to  have  their  share  in  the  making  of  America. 
From  every  one  of  the  countries  of  the  Rhine,  not  from 
the  Palatinate  only,  or  Siegen,  or  Nassau,  but  from 
Switzerland  also,  and.  from  the  borders  of  Holland,  a 
large  number  of  earnest  Christians  came  to  the  Amer- 
ican settlements  early  enough  to  exert  a  permanent  in- 
fluence on  the  formation  of  their  character. 

We  have  no  full  records  of  their  exact  numbers,  but 
in  Dr.  Good's  History  the  names  of  more  than  one 
hundred  of  the  earliest  Reformed  ministers  are  given, 
and  in  most  cases  their  places  of  nativity,  and  it  seems 
quite  safe  to  assume  that,  generally  speaking,  the  people 
came  from  the  same  countries  with  their  pastors. 

According  to  Prof.  Hinke's  latest  list  containing  the 


14  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

names  of  one  hundred  and  ten  Reformed  pastors    in 
America  from  1725- 1792 

Twenty  came  from  Switzerland, 

Twenty-nine  from  the  Palatinate, 

Five  from  the  Lower  Rhine, 

Eight  from  Westphalia, 

Thirteen  from  Hessen  and  Nassau, 

One  from  Holland, 

Nine  from  other  parts  of  Germany,  viz.,  Hanover, 
Magdeburg,  Anhalt,  Tyrol,  mostly  coming  from  col- 
onies of  Hugenot  refugees  there. 

Four  were  born  in  America,  and  of  twenty-one  their 
place  of  nativity  is  unknown. 

The  greater  moiety  of  these,  sixty-one,  had  taken  a 
regular  theological  course  of  study  at  Reformed  uni- 
versities, and  that  then  meant  that  they  were  well 
grounded  in  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  predestination. 
It  did  not  mean,  however,  the  stricter  form  of  it,  supra- 
lapsarianism  teaching  that  God  from  all  eternity,  be- 
fore Adam's  fall  in  paradise,  foreordained  and  elected 
those  that  were  to  be  saved  and  that  Christ  died  for 
them  only.  It  meant  infralapsarianism  as  formulated 
in  the  famous  canons  of  Dort,  1619,  that  Christ's  death 
and  blood  is  a  sufficient  ransom  for  all  humanity,  and 
that  after  Adam's  fall  God  fore-ordained  in  Christ 
those  that  were  to  repent,  to  believe,  and  to  be  saved.  It 
did  not  mean  that  God  forces  repentance  and  faith  upon 
His  elect  as  if  they  were  sticks  or  stones,  but  it  meant 
that  through  the  means  of  grace,  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 


The  Pietists.  15 

he  instructs  and  persuades  and  convinces  them  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

In  those  times  theology  was  in  the  air.  In  our  ma- 
teriahstic  age  we  are  hardly  able  to  form  a  conception 
of  such  a  state  of  things.  In  our  times  the  leaders  of 
people  are  indifferent  to  theology,  and  the  laboring 
men  hostile  to  it,  but  in  those  times  kings  and  states- 
men took  a  vital  interest  in  theological  questions,  and, 
in  forming  their  alliances  and  planning  their  policy, 
were  to  a  large  extent  guided  by  theological  issues.  In 
every  university  the  theological  faculty  took  the  lead 
of  all  others;  public  education  was  intensely  religious; 
the  great  apostacy  of  the  last  days  had  then  not  yet  pro- 
duced that  shameful  slighting  of  spiritual  things  which 
now  is  limiting  religious  instruction  to  the  few  that  are 
not  entirely  given  to  the  pursuit  of  worldly  things. 

Under  such  circumstances,  with  the  establishment  of 
the  calvinistic  doctrine  in  any  state  its  people  were 
taught  that  salvation  came  not  by  human  effort;  that 
nobody  can  save  himself ;  that  without  grace  divine  no- 
body may  love  God  nor  his  neighbor,  but  all  are  prone 
to  disobey  every  divine  commandment ;  that  in  order  to 
be  saved,  we  must  humbly  pray  for  light  divine  and  life 
divine,  and  patiently,  perseveringly  wait  on  God  in  the 
attitude  of  penitent  prayer  until  it  pleases  Him  in  His 
infinite  compassion  to  grant  us  pardon  and  parental 
love,  without  any  merit  or  worthiness  whatever  on  our 
part,  for  Christ's  sake  only. 

It  is  true  that  at  present  the  state-church-system  is 
not  favorable  to  personal  experience  of  religion  in  its 


16  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

clergy.  At  present,  candidates  for  the  ministry  in  Ger- 
many are  examined  for  license  by  government  officials, 
who  would  hardly  ask  them  whether  they  have  received 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Examining  boards  of  today  there  in- 
quire into  the  scientific  attainments,  and  at  the  best 
into  the  moral  character  of  applicants.  But  in  those 
times  the  classes  and  the  synods  had  not  yet  yielded  to 
the  state  their  right  and  duty  to  examine  and  license 
candidates,  and,  in  consequence,  the  ministers  who  then 
came  over,  as  a  rule,  were  men  not  only  well  grounded 
in  doctrine,  but  also  matured  in  personal  piety. 
Some  were  more  than  that ;  they  were 

PIETISTS. 

The  name  of  Pietists  came  into  use  about  the  year 
1680,  when  a  Lutheran  minister  from  the  Elsace, 
Speener  by  name,  who  during  his  stay  at  the  Strass- 
burg  University  had  become  acquainted  with  Re- 
formed views  and  practices,  introduced  them  in  his 
pastoral  work  at  Frankfurt  A.  M.  The  Reformed  made 
a  regular  practice  of  holding  prayer-meetings;  they 
were  administering  church  discipline;  they  made  a 
point  of  teaching  that  true  Christians  during  their  life- 
time receive,  through  the  Spirit,  an  assurance  of  for- 
giveness and  of  their  heavenly  inheritance.  Among  the 
Reformed  people  these  things  were  looked  upon  as  a 
time-honored  practice,  but  in  Lutheran  circles  they 
challenged  attention  and  opposition,  and  soon  a  name 
was  found  for  what  they  considered  a  more  than  doubt- 
ful innovation.   They  called  it  pietism,  or  piety  over- 


The  Pietists.  lY 


done.  The  opprobrious  term,  very  improperly,  from 
the  Lutherans  passed  over  into  those  circles  of  the  Re- 
formed church,  where  lukewarmness  and  worldliness 
had  come  to  prevail,  and  where  ardent  love  of  Christ 
and  full  consecration  to  His  service  had  come  to  be 
looked  upon  as  cant  and  caprice. 

Let  us  now,  for  an  illustration  of  this  "Pietism"  in 
the  Reformed  church,  hear  the  story  of  a  Swiss  pastor 
that  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1710, 

SAMUEL    GULDIN. 

He  was  born  in  Bern,  Switzerland,  in  1664,  and  re- 
ceived his  education  in  the  same  city,  preparatory  to  the 
ministry.  In  a  pamphlet  of  his,  an  apology  of  his  so- 
called  pietistic  practices,  he  has  transmitted  to  posterity 
an  interesting  account  of  his  early  life,  from  which  the 
following  is  taken : 

There  were  four  of  us,  Samuel  Guldin,  Jacob  Dacha, 
Samuel  Schumacher,  and  Christopher  Lutz  who,  in  1689, 
determined  to  make  a  trip  from  Bern  to  Geneva.  We  re- 
solved to  make  it  a  distinctively  christian  journey,  to  avoid 
the  vain  disputes  common  among  students,  and  to  gather 
heavenly  treasure.  While  at  Geneva,  Lutz  took  sick. 
During  this  sickness  not  only  was  he  brought  to  a  profound 
reaUzation  of  his  spiritul  condition,  but  all  of  us,  who  be- 
fore never  could  be  one  of  mind,  were  now  so  Avell  united 
in  spirit,  that  ever  since  we  have  remained  faithful  to  each 
other.  This  happened  in  Geneva,  Calvin's  city.  Then 
we  journeyed  together  to  Lausanne,  and  ever  after  held 
daily  meetings  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening,  to  wor- 
ship God. 

In  August,  1692,  Guldin,  then  28  years  old,  was 
made  pastor  at  Stettlen,  one  league  east  of  Bern.    He 


18 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


was  a  pious  and  earnest  minister,  but  not  yet  satisfied 
with  his  own  inner  life.  He  had  not  the  full  peace  of 
God.  He  lacked  the  certain  assurance  of  having  been 
made  perfect  in  Christ.  He  did  not  expect  moral  sin- 
lessness,  but  a  perfect  imputation  of  Christ's  merits  to 
his  own  soul,  and  a  certain,  permanent  knowledge  of 
the  same,  as  taught  in  the  Heidelberg  catechism,  quej»- 
tion  60: 

How  art  thou  righteous  before  God? 
Only  through  true  faith  in  Jesus  Christ;  thus,  that  al- 
though ray  conscience  convicts  me  that  I  have  grievously 
sinned  against  all  the  commands  of  God,  and  never  kept  any 
of  them,  yea,  still  am  prone  to  all  evil,  nevertheless  God 
without  any  merit  of  mine,  from  mere  mercy,  donates  and 
imputes  to  me  the  perfect  satisfaction,  righteousness,  and 
holiness  of  Christ,  as  if  I  never  had  committed  or  harbored 
any  sin,  and  as  if  I  had  rendered  all  the  obedience,  which 
Christ  performed  for  me,  on  the  sole  condition  of  ray  ac- 
cepting that  benefit  with  a  believing  heart. 

On  Christmas,  1792,  Schuhmacher  informed  Gul- 
din  by  letter  that  he  had  passed  from  darkness  to  the 
light.  This  made  so  deep  an  impression  on  Guldin's 
mind,  and  he  felt  so  dissatisfied  with  his  own  condition, 
that  he  determined  upon  abandoning  the  ministry,  be- 
cause entirely  unfit  for  it  and  unworthy  of  it.  But  on 
the  day  fixed  upon  for  writing  out  his  resignation,  the 
longed-for  experience  of  a  change  of  heart  came.  He 
has  given  a  full  account  of  it,  which  will  be  here  re- 
peated in  his  own  words.  We  will  add  only,  that,  like 
John  the  Apostle,  John  i  :39,  he  remembered  for  life 
the  very  hour  when  he  found  the  Lord,  and  that  like 
Paul,  he  frequently  told  the  story  to  others. 


The  Pietistg.  19 


On  the  fourth  of  August  1693,  between  nine  and  ten 
in  the  morning,  the  light  of  faith  rose  and  was  born  within 
me.  At  that  hour  all  my  doubts  and  scruples  passed  away, 
and  never  afterward  affected  me.  And  I  began  to  preach 
with  a  new  power  so  that  all  my  congregation  noticed  the 
change  that  had  taken  place  in  my  soul 

After  this,  he  no  more  preached  doctrine  in  lifeless 
words,  but  testified  to  the  Gospel  as  he  had  experienced 
its  power.  He  no  more  belonged  to  those  who  believe 
because  taught  by  men  or  books,  but  because  they  have 
heard  Christ  himself,  John  iv :  42.  Now  his  preaching 
became  so  forceful  and  impressive  that  great  crowds 
were  attracted  by  it  from  other  parishes  as  well  as 
from  his  own,  for  the  w'ord  of  God  had  grown  scarce 
in  those  days.  The  fame  of  his  powerful  preaching 
spread  far  and  wide ;  three  years  later  he  was  called  to 
Bern,  the  capital  of  Switzerland,  as  assistant  preacher 
in  the  largest  church  there,  where  thousands  might  be 
benefited  by  his  preaching. 

But  it  was  not  to  be  so.  His  friend  Lutz,  when  he 
heard  of  his  election  to  that  place,  wrote  him  a  letter 
of  congratulation,  in  which,  unfortunately,  some  dis- 
paraging remarks  about  the  clerg)'  of  Bern  occurred, 
and  that  letter  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  authorities 
just  at  a  time  when  their  minds  were  rather  strongly 
exercised  over  the  emotional  and  sensational  preaching 
of  a  certain  Koenig.  He  was  an  upright  and  earnest 
man,  but  thought  that  the  millenium  was  then  on  the 
point  of  coming,  and  when  preaching  on  that  subject 
had  indulged  in  frequent  sharp  criticisms  of  the  clergy 
and  the  government.  In  consequence,  Koenig  and  Lutz 


20  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

and  Guldin  were  summoned  to  appear  before  the  High 
Council  and  were  there  bidden  to  sign  a  renunciation 
of  certain  commendations  of  revivahsm  pubHshed  by 
the  Reformed  Theological  Seminary  of  Saumur, 
France,  which  had  attracted  general  attention,  and 
which  the  Berne  authorities  considered  responsible  for 
the  attitude  taken  by  Koenig,  Lutz  and  Guldin. 

But  the  three  delinquents  could  not  be  prevailed  up- 
on to  sign  the  document,  and,  in  punishment,  Koenig 
was  banished,  and  Guldin's  call  was  revoked.  Lutz 
was  permitted  to  remain.  Guldin  was  appointed  pas- 
tor of  an  obscure  village  in  the  rough  mountains,  where 
he  labored  for  a  short  time  and  then  concluded  to  emi- 
grate to  America. 

We  have  no  definite  account  of  his  work  here.  He 
arrived  in  1710,  and  bought  the  first  plantation  he  saw, 
not  far  from  Philadelphia,  at  Roxbury.  Here  he  seems 
to  have  stayed  and  to  have  worked  as  a  farmer,  to  sup- 
port his  family.  He  did  not  content  himself  with  farm- 
ing, however,  but  held  meetings  and  preached  where- 
ever  an  opportunity  presented  itself.  And  that  could 
not  but  happen  quite  frequently,  since  there  was  quite 
a  numerous  population  of  churchly  Swiss  and  Germans 
around  him.  The  heart  of  a  God-called  minister  filled 
with  the  love  of  Jesus  must  at  all  times,  in  season  and 
out  of  season,  give  utterance  to  the  abundance  of  its 
sacred  thoughts,  and  it  is  just  such  informal  preaching 
that  leads  to  the  organization  of  the  best  churches. 
That  he  was  preaching  to  good  purpose  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  soon  after  his  arrival  we  hear    of 


The  Pietists.  21 


Reformed  congregations  in  Philadelphia  and  German- 
town.  He  is  said  to  have  preached  regularly  in  Rox- 
bury  and  Oley,  and  later  on  in  this  narrative  we  shall 
hear  him  raise  his  voice  in  defense  of  the  Reformed 
church  with  such  a  sense  of  authority  as  leaves  little 
doubt  of  his  having  been  an  influential  leader  in  the 
church-circles  there. 

Eight  years  after  his  arrival  he  published  in  book- 
form  an  apology  of  his  own  and  his  friends'  pastoral 
work  in  Switzerland,  entitled,  Defence  of  the  Unjustly 
Persecuted  Pietists  in  Bern.  The  book  is  still  in  ex- 
istence and  presents  a  clear  and  reliable  synopsis  of  his 
views  and  principles. 

He  had  been  accused  of  reading  and  circulating 
mystical  books,  and  frankly  admits  the  fact,  but 
although  he  found  many  dark  statements  in  them,  ob- 
scure and  unintelligible  to  his  mind,  he  protests  that 
the  Council  of  Bern  had  no  right  to  forbid  reading 
them. 

He  had  been  charged  with  teaching  that  a  Christian 
may  become  perfectly  sinless  in  this  life,  but  he  explains 
that  there  is  taught  by  scripture  a  certain  perfection  in 
Christ — Hebr.  v:i4,  "Strong  meat  belongs  to  them 
that  are  of  full  age,  or  perfect ;"  Phil,  iii  :i5,  "As  many 
as  are  perfect."  The  term  perfect,  Guldin  says,  is  there 
frequently  used  in  the  sense  of  one  that  relies  abso- 
lutely on  the  merits  of  Christ  Jesus. 

He  had  been  charged  with  asserting  that  ungodly 
persons  should  not  be  admitted  to  the  Lord's  supper 
and  that  nobody  should  presume  to  preach  the  Gospel 


22  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

and  administer  the  Sacraments  without  an  inner,  divine 
call.  To  this  charge  he  freely  pleads  guilty,  but  main- 
tains that  here  he  stands  on  good  ground.  For  certain, 
no  apology  is  needed  for  it. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  next  charge,  that  in  his 
preaching  he  did  not  always  speak  with  pastoral  dig- 
nity and  propriety,  but  would  often  use  the  phraseology 
of  conversational  language.  In  his  answer,  Guldin 
very  correctly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Christ 
himself  in  His  preaching  did  the  same  thing. 

Then  follows  the  charge  that  without  proper  au- 
thority he  held  prayer-meetings  at  which,  sometimes, 
even  Anabaptists  and  Mennonites  would  be  present. 
But  what  "proper  authority"  does  a  pastor  need  in 
his  own  congregation  for  the  holding  of  such  meetings  ? 
If  Guldin  had  been  reprimanded  for  neglecting  to  hold 
prayer-meetings,  an  apology  might  have  been  necessary. 

Our  readers,  however,  must  not  be  left  under  the 
impression  that  the  Reformed  church  as  such  is  hostile 
to  prayer-meetings  and  personal  experience  of  salva- 
tion. There  have  been  times  when  such  was  the  case  in 
certain  localities,  but  the  opposition  could  be  but 
temporary.  Nor  did  the  church  of  Bern  form  an  ex- 
ception to  the  rule.  Not  many  years  passed  by  before 
the  Bern  church  formally  and  officially  receded  from 
its  condemnation  of  the  Pietists.  In  1730,  twenty  years 
later,  Koenig  was  recalled  from  his  banishment  and 
even  was  created  professor  of  theology;  Lutz  never 
had  been  deposed,  and  in  his  latter  years  received  pub- 


The  Pietists. 23 

lie   recognition  of  his   valuable  and   splendid   work; 
Dachs  was  made  dean  of  the  whole  Bern  church. 

JOHN  H.  GOETSCHI. 

Seventeen  years  after  Guldin's  publication  of  his 
apology,  in  1735,  another  Swiss  minister,  Aloritz 
Goetschi,  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  bringing  with  him  a 
colonv  of  four  hundred  Swiss  originally  intended  for 
the  Carolinas,  which  at  that  time  had  many  Swiss  im- 
migrants. Like  Guldin  he  had  received  a  full  univer- 
sity training,  but  he  was  not  unblamable  like  him  in 
character.  His  career  and  the  manner  in  which  he  con- 
ducted his  scheme  of  colonizaltion  seem  open  to  well- 
grounded  suspicions  as  to  his  sincerity  and  reliability. 
If,  however,  he  erred^  he  also  suffered  for  it.  His  jour- 
ney from  Switzerland  to  Holland,  from  there  to  Eng- 
land, and  thence  over  the  ocean,  proved  an  unbroken 
chain  of  misfortunes,  troubles,  disappointments,  and 
hardships. 

By  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia,  a  Re- 
formed congregation  had  been  organized  there  under 
Pastor  Weiss,  from  the  Palatinate,  in  1727,  and  he  had 
served  the  congregation  for  some  years.  After  him,  on 
April  24,  1734,  the  well-known  Boehm,  whose  work 
is  described  more  fully  later  on,  had  been  elected  to 
preach  there  every  fourth  Sunday.  That  was  all  he 
could  do,  since  he  had  a  number  of  other  places  to  sup- 
ply with  his  ministrations,  and  even  that  little  could 
not  be  done  with  any  degree  of  regularity. 

When,  therefore,  the  Philadelphia  people  heard  that 


24  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

a  Swiss  minister  had  arrived,  their  elders  came  on 
board  to  welcome  him  and  to  secure  his  services.  They 
found  him  so  weak  from  the  hardships  of  the  ocean- 
journey  that  he  could  not  walk,  but  such  was  their 
desire  for  a  minister  that  they  placed  him  on  a  chair 
and  carried  him  to  the  house  of  a  friend.  Here  a  de- 
lightful hour  was  spent  in  the  exchange  of  greetings 
and  news,  so  refreshing  that  they  would  gladly  have 
made  it  a  full  day,  but  that  Pastor  Goetschi  complained 
of  a  strange  darkness  clouding  his  eyesight  and  of 
great  weariness.  Meantime  a  bed  had  been  made  ready 
for  him  up  stairs  and  they  now  carried  him  there,  but 
before  the  head  of  the  stairs  could  be  reached,  he  sat 
down,  folded  his  arms  across  his  breast,  lifted  his  eyes 
to  heaven,  and  expired. 

Fortunately,  his  son  John  H.  Goetschi,  a  student  of 
theology,  who  had  come  over  with  him,  could  be  pre- 
vailed upon  under  these  affecting  circumstances  to 
take  his  father's  place.  He  was  only  seventeen  years 
old,  but  the  people  insisted  upon  his  becoming  their 
pastor.  He  preached  twice  every  Sunday,  morning  and 
evening,  and  after  each  service  held  catechization.  Be- 
sides in  Philadelphia,  he  also  preached  in  a  number  of 
country  places.  All  this  was  done  rather  irregularly, 
for  he  had  not  received  ordination  to  the  ministry.  He 
had  applied  for  it  with  the  Presbyterians,  but  they  had 
recommended  him  to  wait  until  he  would  have  com- 
pleted his  studies.  Another  irregularity  was  that  he  was 
intruding  up>on  the  pastoral  labors  of  Boehm,  one  of 
the   leading   pioneer   ministers,    whose    life     is     fully 


The  Pietists.  25 

described  later  on.  Nor  could  young  Goetschi  maintain 
his  position  longer  than  four  years.  Still  he  seems  to 
have  been  an  earnest  preacher.  From  Philadelphia  he 
went  to  New  York  in  1740,  where  he  was  called  by  con- 
gregations in  Long  Island.  There  he  united  with  the 
Dutch  Reformed  church,  his  ministry  was  blessed  with 
great  revivals,  and  he  occupied,  among  other  honorable 
positions  of  trust,  that  of  a  trustee  to  Queen's  College. 

JOHN  PETER  MILLER. 

John  Peter  Miller  is  the  representative  of  a  some- 
what different  type  of  Reformed  pioneers  in  America, 
not  a  pietist,  but  a  mystic,  i.  e.,  given  to  a  contempla- 
tive, retired  life  of  vision  and  rapture  rather  than  to 
public  activity. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  Reformed  minister  in  the  Palati- 
nate, and  absolved  his  theological  studies  at  the  Heidel- 
berg University,  but  before  receiving  his  ordination,  he 
emigrated  to  America,  and  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1730,  before  the  times  of  Goetschi.  A  few  weeks  after 
his  arrival  he  presented  himself  for  ordination  before 
the  Presbyterian  Synod  in  session  there  just  at  that 
time.  This  body  examined  him  carefully  and  was  very 
favorably  impressed  with  him.  Dr.  Andrews  writing, 
"He  speaks  Latin  as  well  as  we  speak  our  native 
language,"  and  they  ordained  him. 

The  reason  why  he  applied  for  ordination  with  the 
Presbyterians  rather  than  with  the  Reformed  church 
was  that  the  German  Reformed  had  no  synodical  or- 
ganization and  that  the  Dutch  church  was  rather  dis- 


26 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

tant.  Boehm,  who  had  in  the  preceding  year,  1729, 
received  his  ordination  from  the  Dutch  in  New  York, 
after  much  wearisome  delay,  wanted  him  to  follow  his 
example,  but  Mueller,  like  most  German  newcomers  in 
America,  had  wrong  ideas  of  liberty,  confounding  law- 
lessness with  it.  The  difference  of  liberty  from  servi- 
tude is  not  in  the  absence  of  law,  but  in  one's  attitude 
toward  the  law.  The  slavish  servant  obeys  the  laws 
upon  compulsion,  of  necessity,  but  the  free  citizen, 
from  choice,  willingly,  having  himself  had  his  share 
in  their  making.  But  Mueller  said  to  Boehm  that  "In 
this  land  of  glorious  liberty  Christians  are  free,  and 
Christ  alone  is  their  head."  He  forgot  that  Christ,  our 
Lord  and  Master,  does  not  rule  arbitrarily  but  accord- 
ing to  well  established  laws  and  forms. 

As  an  ordained  minister  Mueller  served  the  Philadel- 
phia congregation  one  year  only.  In  the  country  con- 
gregations he  succeeded  better  and  might  finally  have 
settled  down  to  permanent  usefulness,  had  he  not  fallen 
in  with  one  of  God's  curiosities,  a  man  named  Conrad 
Beissel. 

He  was  a  leader  of  Seventh  Day  Dunkards,  or  Bap- 
tists, who  aimed  at  a  life  of  sinless  perfection  to  be 
reached  by  withdrawing  from  the  world  and  even 
from  family-life.  They  taught  that  sin  began  to  enter 
this  world  when  Adam  desired  a  helpmate,  by  whom  he 
was  afterwards  seduced.  To  avoid  the  snares  of  the 
world  they  had  built  a  large  monastery  in  Ephrata,  Pa. 

Beissel  resolved  to  convert  to  his  faith  the  Reformed 
ministers  that  began  to  arrive,  since  they  were  more 


The  Pietists.  27 


spiritual  than  the  Lutherans.  Every  day  he  prayed  to 
God  on  his  knees  to  "Give  him  one  of  these  preachers 
for  the  better  carrying  on  of  God's  work."  First  he 
prayed  for  the  conversion  of  Rev.  Rieger,  a  fellow  stu- 
dent of  Mueller,  who  had  come  before  Mueller  and 
was  preaching  in  those  parts.  But  Rieger  married,  and 
Beissel  complained  to  God:  "O  Lord,  thou  sufferest 
them  to  spoil  on  my  very  hands."  But  nothing  daunted 
he  next  turned  his  attention  to  Mueller,  and  with  him 
he  succeeded.  At  the  same  time  he  also  gained  over 
Conrad  Weiser,  the  man  that  led  the  Palatines  from 
the  Mohawk  to  the  Swatara,  three  elders,  and  ten 
heads  of  Reformed  and  Lutheran  families.  On  one 
day  all  were  immersed,  and  the  solemnity  of  the  oc- 
casion was  hightened  by  piling  up  some  catechisms, 
hymn-books,  and  prayer-books,  and  burning  them  pub- 
licly, because  they  were  the  works  of  man  and  not  of 
God. 

However,  the  impression  made  did  not  last  long. 
All  but  Mueller  soon  returned  to  their  mother 
church.  He  took  the  new  baptismal  name  of  Jabez. 
1  Chron.  iv:io,  "And  Jabez  was  more  honorable  than 
his  brethren,  and  his  mother  called  his  name  Jabez, 
i.  e.,  sorrowful.  And  Jabez  called  upon  the  God  of 
Israel,  saying,  O  that  thou  wouldst  bless  me  indeed, 
and  enlarge  my  coast,  and  that  thine  hand  would  be 
with  me,  and  that  thou  wouldst  keep  me  from  evil,  that 
it  might  not  grieve  me.  And  God  granted  him  that 
which  he  requested." 

Of  the  Jabez   in  the  Bible   nothing  else    is  known. 


28  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Few  Bible  students  if  asked  who  he  was  would  know 
anything  about  him.  The  name  was  chosen,  probably, 
for  that  very  reason.  Nor  did  the  people  know  him  by 
that  name,  although  he  continued  to  live  in  the  cloister 
until  his  death,  in  1796,  more  than  sixty  years.  They 
called  him  Peter  the  Hermit.  He  did  not  entirely  sub- 
ordinate himself  to  the  rules  of  the  order,  but  as  he 
loved  a  quiet  life,  and  had  literary  tastes,  and  the 
Ephrata  Society  had  a  printing  press  there  and  pub- 
lished many  devotional  books,  he  had  no  lack  of  con- 
genial work  to  occupy  his  mind.  Beissel  wanted  him 
to  labor  as  a  preacher,  but  Mueller  refused  to  comply. 

When  he  had  grown  quite  old,  during  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  an  opportunity  was  presented  to  prove  in 
an  unmistakable  and  ever  memorable  way,  how  genuine 
his  faith  was.  There  was  living  in  Ephrata  a  fanatical 
enemy  and  persecutor  of  the  cloister-people,  base- 
minded,  full  of  gall  and  bitterness,  in  every  possible 
way  ever  ready  to  harm  them.  He  was  also  a  Tory, 
and  as  such  was  detected  in  treasonable  attempts 
against  the  government  of  the  United  States.  He  was 
seized,  tried,  and  condemned  to  be  hanged. 

As  soon  as  Mueller  heard  of  it,  he  set  out  on  foot 
and  walked  sixty  miles  to  Washington's  headquarters, 
to  intercede  for  the  condemned.  The  general  listened 
to  his  appeal  with  his  habitual  kindness,  but  answered 
that  sorry  as  he  was  to  disappoint  Mueller,  his  un- 
fortunate friend  could  not  be  pardoned — he  must  die. 

"My  unfortunate  friend,"  exclaimed  Mueller,  "why, 
I  have  no  greater  enemy  in  the  world  than  that  man." 


The  Pietists.  29 


"What,"  rejoined  Washington,  "and  you  have 
walked  sixty  miles  to  save  an  enemy's  life !  That  puts 
matters  in  an  altogether  different  light.  I  grant  your 
prayer." 

The  pardon  was  made  out  and  without  delay  Mueller 
went  on  foot  fifteen  miles  to  the  place  where  on  that 
afternoon  the  execution  was  to  take  place.  He  arrived 
in  the  nick  of  time;  the  culprit  was  just  on  his  last  walk 
to  the  gallows. 

"There,"  he  cried,  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  old 
man,  "there  is  old  Peter  Mueller,  who  has  walked  all 
the  way  from  Ephrata  to  see  me  hang." 


So  little  do  such  men  know  of  God's  children.  Let 
us  hope  that  he  made  use  of  the  remainder  of  his  life 
to  repent,  and  that  he  learned  to  love  Peter  Mueller  and 
his  Savior. 

The  writers  of  history  do  not  generally  place  on  rec- 
ord the  names  of  true  heroes  like  Mueller.  The  world 
does  not  care  for  them.  But  we  will  not  forget  them. 
We  thank  God  for  them;  we  praise  Him  for  having 
placed  in  the  galaxy  of  the  truly  heroical  pioneers  of 
America  such  men  as  Haegener,  Guldin,  and  John  Peter 
Mueller,  side  by  side  with  the  followers  of  William 
Penn  and  Roger  Williams,  the  Puritans  and  the  Pil- 
grims. 


II.     THE  MORAVIANS. 

About  fifty  years  after  the  rise  of  Pietism  in  Ger- 
many, Count  Zinzendorf  founded  the  Moravian  com- 
munity. He  had  himself  received  a  pietistic  training, 
but  in  addition  to  what  the  pietist  Lutherans  had 
learned  from  the  Reformed,  he  learned  new  truths  from 
the  Moravian  remnants  of  Hussites  and  Bohemian 
Protestants,  who  had  been  persecuted  by  the  bigoted 
Austrian  government  for  centuries  with  unrelenting 
and  constantly  increasing  violence.  Under  the  cross 
they  had  learned  to  govern  themselves  as  a  church  en- 
tirely free  from  state  control,  and  when  upon  Zinzen- 
dorf's  invitation  they  built  the  city  of  Herrnhut  on  his 
lands,  Zinzendorf  making  common  cause  with  them, 
they  succeeded  in  establishing  the  first  Christian  church 
in  Germany  free  from  state  control — a  great  advance 
upon  the  Lutheran  conception  of  churches  governed  by 
princes  and  civil  magistrates. 

In  point  of  doctrine,  he  overcame  the  somewhat  nar- 
row views  of  the  Pietists  on  conversion.  They  held  that 
to  become  a  genuine  Christian  one  must  pass  through 
a  severe  agony  of  repentance  succeeded  by  transports 
of  joy  over  pardon  obtained  from  God,  and  that  no 
one  may  claim  the  comforts  and  privileges  of  a  true 
believer,  who  cannot  point  to  a  day  on  which  he  passed 
through  such  experience.    But  Zinzendorf  knew  Christ 

.30 


The  Moravians.  31 


from  childhood;  in  fact,  from  infancy.  His  first  child- 
ish attempts  in  penmanship  and  composition  consisted 
in  letters  addressed  to  Jesus  and  cast  out  of  the  win- 
dows to  be  born  heavenward  by  the  winds.  His  plays 
as  a  boy  in  school  culminated  in  the  organization  of 
the  Mustard  Seed  Order,  for  united  prayer  and  work. 
Unconscious  of  any  special  hour  when  he  had  accepted 
Christ,  he  had  grown  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit,  filled 
with  wisdom,  and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him — 
Luke  ii :  40.  From  his  own  experience,  then,  he  could 
not  but  reject  the  theory  that  made  an  agony  of  re- 
pentance once  experienced  the  test  of  saving  faith. 

As  for  a  doctrinal  standard,  he  retained  the  pietistic 
laxity  of  doctrine.  He  did  not  consider  creeds  essential 
elements  in  the  foundation  of  the  church.  Himself  no 
theologian,  he  preferred  the  enjoyment  of  devotional 
exercises  in  closet  and  conventicle  to  systematic  re- 
search. Although  he  called  himself  a  Lutheran,  he  felt 
perfectly  free  to  identify  himself  with  God's  people  in 
every  other  denomination.  From  the  very  beginning  he 
organized  his  new  church  on  a  union-basis.  Its  official 
name  was  the  Unitas  Fratriiin  (Union  of  Brethren). 

Men  might  enter  this  Union  without  giving  up  their 
denominational  peculiarities,  and  they  might,  further- 
more, form  groups  in  which  to  cultivate  them.  These 
groups  were  called  Tropes.  There  was  to  be  a  Luth- 
eran Tropus,  a  Reformed  Tropus,  e.  a.  The  term  was 
derived  from  a  Greek  word  used  in  Phil,  i  :i8,  where 
Paul  speaks  of  some  men  preaching  Christ  in  conten- 
tion, but  does  not  complain  of  it;  he  rather  rejoices  in 


32  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

that,  "Every  way,  whether  in  pretence  or  in  truth, 
Christ  is  preached;  and  I  therein  rejoice,  yea  and  will 
rejoice."    The  word  way  stands  for  the  Greek  tropos. 

Quite  a  number  of  Lutherans  and  Reformed  fell  in 
with  Zinzendorf's  plan  and  formed  Tropes  in  connec- 
tion with  the  new  church.  But  a  much  larger  number 
of  adherents  came  from  various  sects  in  the  Palatinate, 
in  Siegen,  in  Wittgenstein,  and  some  other  Reformed 
states  in  the  Lower  Rhine  region.  In  those  times  the 
Lutheran  and  the  Catholic  princes  did  not  tolerate 
sects;  their  subjects  must  have  the  religion  of  their 
rulers.  But  the  Reformed  were  more  tolerant  and  of- 
fered them  asylums  in  their  territories.  Some  of  these 
sectarians  indulged  in  mystical  speculations  and 
claimed  to  have  special  inspirations  and  visions  reveal- 
ing to  them  the  near  advent  of  the  millenium.  They 
interpreted  the  seven  congrations  named  in  Revelation 
ii.  and  iii.  to  mean  seven  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
church.  In  the  order  of  these  chapters  the  one  of 
Laodicea  comes  last  and  that  of  Philadelphia  second 
last.  Now  Philadelphia  means  Brotherly  Love,  and  on 
this  ground  the  Moravian  church,  the  Unity  of  Breth- 
ren, was  thought  to  usher  in  the  second-last  period, 
and  the  promise  given  Rev.  iii :  7,  was  applied  to  them, 
"I  will  keep  thee  from  the  hour  of  temptation,  which 
shall  come  upon  all  the  earth."  Possibly,  the  city  of 
Philadelphia,  in  Pennsylvania,  may  have  received  its 
name  on  similar  grounds,  for  Wm.  Penn  always  main- 
tained an  intimate  intercourse  with  sects  in  Germany. 

These  pious  members  of  sects  and  of  the  Reformed 


The  Moravians.  33 


and  the  Lutheran  church  seem  to  have  known  Jesus, 
Him  whom  to  know  means  to  love  Him,  and  not  only 
to  love  Him,  but  also  to  love  Him  better  than  their  own 
church  community.  The  better  men  love  Christ,  the 
more  they  enjoy  fellowship  with  Christ's  own  in  other 
denominations.  But  how  to  temper  such  largeness  of 
heart  with  loyalty  to  the  church,  that  is  a  problem  not 
easy  to  solve,  and  the  mildness  of  the  Reformed 
people,  their  liberality,  and  tolerance  of  other  Christ- 
ians has  frequently  misled  them  into  an  indiscreet  zeal 
for  fellowship  with  men  of  other  churches,  and  to  a 
fatal  disregard  of  ecclesiastical  duties.  They  would 
break  the  outward  form  of  the  church  so  necessary  to  its 
work  and  its  very  existence,  as  one  breaks  the  shell  of 
a  nut  to  get  at  the  kernel,  thus  killing  its  very  life  and 
its  power  of  germination. 

Let  us  now  see  how  the  Reformed  pioneers  in 
Pennsylvania  had  to  wrestle  with  the  problem  of  liber- 
ality combined  with  loyalty. 

When  Zinzendorf,  in  Nov.,  1741,  came  to  America, 
he  found  in  the  Reformed  congregations  many  pious 
souls  most  favorably  disposed,  having  been  well  pre- 
pared for  his  coming  by  active  members  of  the  Morav- 
ian settlements  in  Bethlehem  and  other  places  of 
Pennsylvania.  They  had  been  informed  of  his  won- 
derful achievements.  He  also  brought  along  with  him 
a  number  of  amiable  Reformed  companions,  pious, 
earnest,  and  spiritual  in  their  conversation,  among 
whom  his  own  almost  supernaturally  lovely  face 
beaming  with  the  happiness  of  a  child-like  faith  and 


34  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

reflecting  the  full  peace  of  a  consecrated  life,  shone 
forth  like  a  sun  among  his  planets. 

One  of  these  companions  was  John  Brandmueller, 
a  bookkeeper  from  Reformed  Basel,  but  now  a  member 
of  the  Moravian  congregation  there,  well  gifted  in 
speech.  Later  on  he  was  ordained  to  the  ministry  here. 

Another  such  was  Chr.  H.  Ranch,  who  became  a 
famous  missionary  among  the  Indians.  To  his  minis- 
try an  Indian  chief  once  bore  this  testimony : 

"Other  missionaries  came  before  him.  They 
preached  we  must  not  steal  nor  get  drunk,  but  the 
birds  of  the  trees  had  sung  that  message  into  our  ears 
long  before  they  came,  and  our  hearts  remained  cold 
and  hard  as  stones.  Then  this  man  came  and  told  us 
that  the  Son  of  God  loved  us  and  suffered  for  our  sins 
on  a  cross,  and  at  his  words  our  hearts  became  like 
wax  in  the  noon-sun.  I  then  was  like  a  poor  worm, 
around  which  a  circle  of  dry  leaves  is  burning.  The 
worm  creeps  one  way  for  to  escape,  but  is  turned  back 
by  the  burning  fire;  it  creeps  another  way,  but  the 
flames  drive  it  back  again ;  it  creeps  many  ways,  but  all 
in  vain.  Finally  it  curls  up  in  despair  and  lies  down  in 
the  center,  to  die.  Then,  when  I  was  nearly  dead,  lo, 
an  arm  reached  down  from  heaven  and  a  hand  took  me 
up  and  saved  me." 

Thus  the  untutored  mind  of  the  savage  had  appre- 
hended the  gospel,  saved  by  grace,  the  story  told  by 
one  who  knew  it  by  heart,  i.  e.,  by  experience. 

This  same  Rauch  finally  served  a  number  of  Re- 
formed congregations  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania. 


The  Moravians.  35 


Another  bright  star  in  this  constellation  was  John 
Lischy,  a  weaver  by  trade,  from  the  Elsass.  There  he 
had  been  awakened  in  a  Moravian  meeting  to  a  sense 
of  his  need  of  a  Savior.  After  that  he  had  visited 
Herrnhuth  and  other  hearths  of  the  sacred  fire, 
and  all  aglow  with  it  he  now  came  with  Zinzendorf, 
soon  to  be  ordained  and  to  be  made  the  leading  spirit 
of  the  Reformed  Trope.  Like  Ranch,  he  finally  served 
a  number  of  Reformed  congregations  with  acceptance 
and  success. 

Their  number  was  soon  augmented  by  the  Ameri- 
cans whom  the  Moravian  leaders  resident  in  Bethle- 
hem had  prepared  for  Zinzendorf's  coming. 

Henry  Antes,  a  native  of  the  Palatinate,  was  an  in- 
fluential elder  of  the  Reformed  congregation,  at  Falk- 
ner's  Swamp.  He  enjoyed  general  confidence  for  his 
integrity  and  sound  judgment  as  well  as  for  his  earn- 
est piety.  He  seems  to  have  been  well  educated,  for 
whenever  any  legal  business  was  to  be  done,  his  neigh- 
bors would  come  to  him  for  advice  and  for  the  mak- 
ing out  of  documents.  Seven  years  before  Zinzendorf 
came,  Spangenberg,  Zinzendorf's  theologian,  had  com- 
menced visiting  Antes,  and  had  so  well  prepared  the 
ground  that  Zinzendorf  came  to  see  him  almost  im- 
mediately after  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia,  and  could 
at  once  induce  him  to  issue  a  circular  calling  upon  all 
who  longed  for  a  union  of  God's  people  to  meet  for 
prayer  and  deliberation  in  Germantown,  now  a  suburb 
of  Philadelphia. 

The  Reformed  congregation  of  Germantown  at  that 


36  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

time  was  served  by  Jolin  Bcchtcl,  one  of  those  pious 
men  without  a  theological  training  who  then  were  of- 
ficiating in  Reformed  congregations.  By  trade  he  was 
a  turner,  nor  had  he  given  up  working  at  the  turning 
lathe  in  his  own  workshop  after  he  had  been  called  to 
the  ministry.  In  his  youth  he  had  been  converted,  after 
he  had  sowed  his  wild  oats  quite  recklessly.  Then  he 
had  married  and  had  emigrated  from  his  home  in  the 
Palatinate  in  1726,  together  with  a  large  number  of  his 
countrymen.  He  had  settled  in  Germantown,  and  there 
he  had  for  two  years  given  his  time  to  the  cares  and 
labors  of  pioneer  life,  and  to  the  establishment  of  his 
mind  in  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  his  God.  His 
home  had  become  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  his 
heart  the  abode  of  Christ.  And  since  Christ  never  can 
be  idle,  Bechtel,  for  whom  to  live  was  Christ,  could  not 
be  inactive  with  him.  He  held  prayer-meetings  every 
morning  and  every  evening  on  week-days,  also  on 
Sundays.  By  the  Reformed  people  of  those  days  such 
exercises  were  looked  upon  with  much  favor,  and  four 
years  later  the  leading  men  of  the  congregation  just 
then  engaged  in  building  a  church,*  thought  that  even 

*In  Dr.  Good's  History  the  laying  of  the  corner  stone  is  said 
to  have  occurred  in  1719;  the  same  date  is  given  in  Dubbs' 
American  Church  History,  viii :  p.  245,  and  in  Hallische  Nach- 
richten.  But  the  Swedish  pastor,  Dylandcr,  who  laid  the  cor- 
nerstone, did  not  come  to  Pennsylvania  before  1737,  eighteen 
years  later,  and  one  of  the  Germantown  elders  writes  in  a 
letter  dated  July  14,  1744:  "Some  ten  years  ago  four  members 
of  this  congregation  did  their  very  best  to  build  a  church." 

Also  Boehm  says  in  his  letter  of  Oct.  28,  1734,  that  the  con- 
gregation had  indeed  made  good  progress  with  the  building 
of  their  church,  but  was  heavily  oppressed  with  debts. 

W.  J.  HINKE- 


The  Moravians.  37 


if  Bechtel  lacked  education  and  ordination,  he  would  be 
the  suitable  man  to  build  up  the  church.  Bechtel  was 
given  a  call  and  entered  upon  his  pastorate  in  1733. 

Like  Antes,  Bechtel  had  held  frequent  intercourse 
with  the  Moravians,  especially  with  Spangenberg,  and 
had  come  to  think  very  highly  of  them.  His  address 
had  been  furnished  to  Zinzendorf  in  Europe,  and  no 
sooner  had  Zinzendorf  landed  in  New  York,  even  be- 
fore coming  to  Philadelphia,  than  he  sent  him  a  letter  to 
Germantown  with  an  invitation,  appointing  the  time 
and  place  for  an  interview  in  Philadelphia.  Bechtel 
felt  perplexed;  he  hesitated  to  commit  himself;  but 
one  of  his  daughters  urged  him  on,  and  when  her  argu- 
ments and  entreaties  failed  to  overcome  his  doubts,  she 
ran  into  the  pasture  behind  their  house,  caught  her 
father's  horse  and  soon  had  it  bridled  and  saddled  in 
front  of  the  house.  Such  ardent  appeal  was  not  to 
be  resisted.  Bechtel  went  to  see  the  remarkable  man, 
and  on  the  next  day  the  remarkable  man  came  to  see 
Bechtel.  And  a  complete  conquest  resulted,  so  complete 
that  the  first  conference  of  The  Congregation  of  God 
in  the  Spirit,  for  such  was  the  ofificial  title  of  the  new 
organization,  could  be  called  to  meet  in  Bechtel's 
church.  Zinzendorf  was  invited  also  to  preach  a  series 
of  sermons  there. 

A  third  friend  of  the  Moravians  was  John  Barth. 
Rieger,  the  fellow-student  of  Mueller,  whom  Conrad 
Beissel  had  tried  so  hard  to  convert  to  mysticism,  now 
pastor  of  the  Reformed  congregation  at  Lancaster.  He 
had  previously  become  acquainted  with  the  Moravians, 


38  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

perhaps  with  Zinzendorf  himself,  when  studying  in 
Basel.  Zinzendorf  now  paid  him  a  visit  in  Lancaster 
and  received  a  cordial  welcome.  From  his  pulpit,  on 
next  Sunday ,  Rieger  highly  commended  the  great 
leader  and  his  cause. 

After  these  preparations  the  conference  was  held  in 
Germantown  on  January  i  and  2.  The  Lutherans,  the 
Reformed,  the  Mennonites,  the  Seventh-Day  Dunk- 
ards  of  Ephrata,  the  Schwenkfeldians,  the  Inspired, 
and  the  Separatists  were  represented,  a  queer  crowd, 
but  they  made  up  by  sincerity  for  what  may  have  been 
lacking  in  dignity.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  proceed- 
ings were  not  altogether  harmonious,  and  some  com- 
plaint was  made  about  Zinzendorf's  rather  imperious 
manner.  Probably  some  of  these  curious  saints  with 
more  imagination  than  common  sense  could  not  well 
be  curbed  without  a  bold  assumption  of  authority  on 
the  leader's  part.  Nevertheless,  some  good  results  were 
reached  sufficiently  encouraging  to  proceed  with  the 
work  and  to  hold  six  more  conventions  in  the  five 
subsequent  months,  and  a  permanent  organization  was 
effected,  a  basis  on  which  to  work  together. 

Of  the  Reformed  Trope,  consisting  of  Reformed 
ministers  and  congregations  joining  the  new  union, 
Bechtel  was  made  Inspector,  and  he  was  authorized  to 
write  and  publish  a  new  catechism  for  their  use.  That 
was  a  fatal  error.  If  the  Reformed  Trope  was  to  con- 
sist of  men  continuing  to  hold  Reformed  views,  no 
such  office  should  have  been  created,  and  no  such  au- 
thority should  have  been  given  to  one  man.    The  Re- 


The  Moravians.  39 


formed  church  holds  fast  to  the  parity  of  all  its  minis- 
ters and  elders  as  taught  by  Christ,  Luke  xxiii  :8,  "For 
one  is  your  master,  even  Christ,  and  all  ye  are 
brethren."  Nor  could  they  substitute  a  new  catechism 
for  the  Heidelberg,  if  they  would  claim  to  stay 
Reformed.  But  they  objected  to  questions  8i  and  114, 
where  the  necessity  of  a  continued  repentance  and 
a  daily  conversion  of  believers  is  taught,  and  where  the 
most  pious  are  said  to  make  but  a  very  small  beginning 
in  keeping  the  laws  of  God. 

To  vest  Bechtel's  new  catechism  with  more  authority, 
and  to  make  it  more  palatable,  it  was  said  to  be  based 
on  the  Canons  and  Essentials  of  Christian  Faith  pro- 
mulgated by  the  Synod  of  Bern,  in  the  early  days  of 
the  Reformation,  in  1532.  But  the  claim  cannot  be  sus- 
tained. In  point  of  fact,  Bechtel's  catechism  passes  by 
in  absolute  silence  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  and  other  "essentials."  Of  baptism  it  says  that 
it  was  instituted  in  memory  of  Christ,  and  the  Lord's 
supper  is  ignored  entirely. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  book  is  not  without  its 
merits.  Like  all  modern  Christianity  it  is  more  prac- 
tical, and  has  more  to  say  about  the  true  manner  of 
apprehending  and  accepting  salvation  on  the  part  of 
man,  than  the  older  testimonies.  Much  is  said  about 
conversion  and  about  the  true  Christian  life.  But  the 
author  is  far  from  relying  on  man's  natural  strength 
for  it;  much  stress  is  laid  on  Christ's  love  and  its 
power,  on  the  efficacy  of  His  death,  and  on  faith. 


40  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


From  a  copy  before  the  author,  printed  in  1742  by 
Benjamin  Franklin,  in  Philadelphia,  the  following 
questions  are  translated  as  samples  of  its  eminently 
practical  character: 

167.  Wherein  does  conversion  really  consist? 
In  turning  from  Satan's  power  to  that  of  God. 

168.  Who  is  Satan? 

An  angel  who  did  not  keep  his  first  estate,  but  left 
his  own  habitation.   Jud.  6. 

169.  What  is  he  doing? 

He  walks  about,  as  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he 
might  devour.    I.  Pet.  v :  8. 

170.  Whom  does  he  get? 

He  deceiveth  the  whole  world.   Rev.  xii  -.g. 

171.  What  has  he  to  do  with  the  world? 
He  is  the  God  of  this  world.    H.  Cor.  iv:  4. 

172.  What  else  is  he? 
Its  father.   John  viii  144. 

173.  Who  are  his  subjects? 

He  worketh  in  the  children  of  disobedience. 

174.  But  would  people  leave  him? 

If  once  their  eyes  were  opened.   Acts  xxvi  :i8. 

175.  But  how  may  one  get  away  from  him? 
Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  you  will  be  saved. 

Acts  xvi  13. 

176.  But  if  one  cannot  believe? 

God  offers  faith  to  every  one.  Acts  xvii:3i. 

177.  But  what  is  faith? 

Calling  on  him  whom  we  do  not  see  as  if  we  saw 
him.   Heb.  xi:27. 


The  Moravians.  41 


178.    How  far  must  that  go? 

Even  as  if  you  saw  the  prints  of  his  nails,  and  laid 
your  fingers  into  the  prints  of  his  nails,  and  thrust  your 
hand  into  his  side. 

For  some  time  it  seemed  as  if  the  new  organization 
would  split  and  disintegrate  the  Reformed  congrega- 
tions in  Pennsylvania.  By  ordaining  Ranch,  Antes, 
Brandmueller,  and  Lischy,  the  conference  could  count 
six  Reformed  pastors,  men  of  undoubted  piety  and 
power.  In  one  of  their  meetings  three  Indians,  Mo- 
hawks from  New  York  converted  through  Ranch's 
labors,  were  baptized.  There  were  other  very  solemn 
and  impressive  scenes  in  other  conferences.  But  a  re- 
action set  in.  First  the  Seventh-day  Baptists  with- 
drew. Then  the  Reformed  became  disaffected  because 
Moravian  customs  were  pressed  upon  them,  after  large 
numbers  of  Moravians  had  came  over  as  a  compact 
colony.  Lischy  took  offence  at  the  introduction  of 
white  vestments  and  long  litanies.  In  Lancaster  the 
Reformed  congregation  would  not  sustain  Pastor 
Rieger  in  his  efforts  to  befriend  the  Moravians,  and  so 
he  had  to  resign.  The  many  quaint  forms  and  customs 
bred  in  Zinzendorf's  fertile  mind  and  introduced  by 
him  for  new  festivals  seemed  contrary  to  the  scriptural 
simplicity  of  worship.  In  the  Moravian  hymns  is  found 
more  sentimental  play  on  the  emotional  side  of  Christ's 
passion  than  sober  instruction  and  food  for  the  intel- 
lect. However  attractive  at  first,  these  pleasantries  in 
course  of  time  became  insipid  and  distasteful.  Zinzen- 
dorf  himself  left  America  soon  after  the  seventh  con- 


42  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

ference  meeting,  and  the  absence  of  his  powerful  per- 
sonality was  felt  to  such  an  extent  that  no  further  con- 
ferences were  held. 

Samuel  Guldin,  high  in  years,  but  of  considerable 
influence  among  the  people,  raised  his  voice  of  protest. 
At  first  his  longing  for  fellowship  and  increased  life 
had  impelled  him  to  make  common  cause  with  Zinzen- 
dorf,  and  he  attended  the  first  of  the  conferences  at 
Germantown,  but  he  left  the  conference  at  the  end  of 
the  first  day.  He  seems  to  have  missed  the  divine  ele- 
ment in  that  efifort  at  unification.  In  his  judgment,  the 
advocates  of  the  movement  displayed  too  much  human 
zeal.  In  1742  and  1743  he  wrote  a  book  to  that  effect 
and  had  it  published  in  1743,  entitled,  "Unpartisan 
Witness  on  the  New  Union  of  all  Denominations  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  also  on  Some  Other  Points." 

But  the  most  active  and  efficient  defender  of  the  Re- 
formed church,  to  whom,  next  to  God,  its  preservation 
in  those  dangerous  times  seems  mainly  due,  was  a  man 
who  deserves  more  than  a  passing  mention, 

JOHN  PHIL.  BOEHM. 

Of  the  workers  in  Christ's  church  some  are  like 
high-pressure  engines,  and  others  like  low-pressure 
ones;  some  are  subjectively  filled  with  strong  personal 
convictions  to  be  impressed  upon  their  fellowmen,  and 
others  are  objective  representatives  of  their  fellow- 
men's  minds  to  be  fostered  in  wisdom  and  modera- 
tion; some  work  in  fitful  flashes,  and  others  in  steady 
strength.    Boehm  was  of  the  latter  class,  one  of  the 


The  Moravians.  43 


cleanest-cut  representatives  of  the  Pennsylvanian  type, 
very  mild,  but  very  firm.  He  abounded  more  in  com- 
mon sense  than  in  imagination,  for  which  reason  he, 
probably,  was  less  efficient  in  the  pulpit  than  in  pas- 
toral work. 

He  lacked  a  university  education,  nor  was  there  any- 
thing brilliant  or  catching  about  him,  nor  does  he  seem 
to  have  been  aggressive  in  his  labors.  He  rather  ex- 
celled in  persistence  and  insistence.  His  daily  walk 
was  without  blemish,  and  his  character  altogether  with- 
out reproach.  If  he  did  not  arouse  men  to  new  thought, 
he  could  put  together  and  keep  together  existing  life- 
forces. 

His  personal  experience  of  the  inner  life  seems  to 
have  been  like  the  even  flow  of  a  river  without  sharp 
turns  or  rapids  and  cataracts.  He  inherited  from  pious 
parents  the  habits  of  life  and  thought  that  reflect 
Christ's  life,  and  from  the  hour  of  his  baptism  on  he 
quietly  grew  into  the  consciousness  of  his  salvation,  not 
without  those  severe  struggles,  of  course,  and  agonies 
even,  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  overcome  sin 
and  self,  but  without  experiencing  those  violent  throes 
and  travails  to  which  they  are  subject  who  from  out- 
spoken enmity  to  the  Lord  pass  over  into  devoted  con- 
secration to  His  service — a  John  the  Evangelist  rather 
than  a  St.  Paul. 

His  father  was  a  Reformed  minister  in  Hessia,  but 
he  himself  had  to  content  himself  with  the  humbler 
calling  of  a  schoolmaster.  From  1708  to  171 5  he  taught 
the  Reformed  School  of  Worms  in  the  Palatinate.  The 


44  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

schoolmasters  of  those  times  were  to  a  large  extent 
assistants  of  their  pastors,  and  had  to  perform  many 
clerical  functions.  In  the  Sunday  service,  besides  lead- 
ing in  the  singing,  they  read  the  scripture  lesson.  They 
assisted  in  the  administration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  and 
of  baptism,  also  at  funerals  and  marriages.  In  school 
they  taught  scripture  and  catechism.  In  case  of  the 
pastor's  absence  they  conducted  the  Sunday  service  and 
read  a  sermon.  When  in  America  the  newcomers  found 
themselves  without  pastors,  they  would  naturally  look 
to  the  schoolmasters  for  the  conducting  of  public  ser- 
vice, they  being  the  pastor's  legitimate  substitutes.  In 
the  early  records  of  Reformed  churches  here  the  names 
of  many  such  are  met  with.  There  was  Conrad  Tem- 
pelmann,  who  began  to  preach  in  1725,  in  his  own 
house  at  Lebanon,  and  served  as  many  as  six  congrega- 
tions at  a  time,  greatly  beloved.  Geo.  Suther  served  the 
first  congregations  in  North  Carolina  and  deserves  to 
be  called  the  father  of  the  Reformed  church  in  that 
state.  Friedr.  Casp.  Mueller,  from  1774  to  1763,  served 
a  number  of  congregations  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania. 
John  Weymer,  Otterbein's  co-worker,  was  a  school- 
master, and  so  was  Peter  Miller — not  identical  with 
John  Peter  Mueller — who  officiated  in  several  East 
Pennsylvania  congregations. 

Boelim  came  to  America  in  1720,  not  from  choice 
nor  from  temporal  motives,  but  because  his  position 
had  been  made  untenable  by  the  intrigues  and  petty" 
persecutions  of  Jesuits,  to  which  the  Reformed  were  ex- 
posed, since,  in  1685,  a  Catholic  side-line  had  inherited 


08 
•ssia^  JO  aDBid  qiaiq  aqi  'aaSniddg 


**•'  '■'"'■'^^— •'^Jl»»i-.^..x^. 


•aatjraiadiuax  JO  aoBidqpiq  aq;  'oiiaquiaj^ 


The  3Ioravians.  45 


the  Palatinate,  the  direct  line  of  Frederic  III.  of  the 
Heidelberg  catechism,  having  become  extinct.  The 
Catholics  took  from  the  Reformed  in  Heidelberg  the 
cathedral  church  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  all  over  the 
country  the  use  of  the  Heidelberg  catechism  was  for- 
bidden because  in  question  80  the  mass  is  denounced 
as  a  damnable  idolatry.  To  every  town  and  village 
Jesuits  were  sent  to  find  pretexts  for  legal  persecution 
and  to  pick  quarrels  with  the  pastors,  sure  in  every 
case  to  end  in  dispossessing  the  Reformed  of  their 
churches  and  guaranteed  rights. 

In  those  times  of  religious  oppression,  from  which 
the  Lutherans  and  the  Mennonites  had  to  suflfer  no 
less  than  the  Reformed,  highly  colored  descriptions  of 
the  fertile  lands  in  Pennsylvania  were  circulated  in  the 
Rhine  regions  by  the  agents  of  Wm.  Penn,  in  a  small 
book  called  The  Golden  Book.  Fine  farms  were  to  be 
had  for  the  asking,  with  full  freedom  of  worship,  and 
civil  liberty  and  equality.  A  great  exodus  of  emigra- 
tion set  in,  and  Boehm  joined  it. 

He  found  the  country  north  of  Philadelphia,  the 
Schuylkill  valley,  where  he  settled,  thickly  inhabited  by 
his  countrymen  and  coreligionists,  but  destitute  of  pas- 
tors, and  when  they  urged  him  to  care  for  their  relig- 
ious needs,  he  readily  acceded  to  their  request. 

At  first  he  officiated  in  the  capacity  of  a  lector  only, 
i.  e.,  he  read  sermons  and  conducted  the  service.  But 
there  was  a  large  number  of  unbaptized  children,  and 
no  communion  had  been  held  for  many  years.  In  this 
destitution  the  people  felt  that  the  exigencies  of  life  in 
4 


46 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

a.  new  world  would  warrant  a  disregard  of  forms  and 
restrictions  meant  for  their  old  and  well  established 
home  church,  the  more  so  since  this  was  a  free  coun- 
try. The  Falkner's  Swamp  congregation  was  the  first 
to  call  upon  Boehm  to  become  their  pastor,  and  Henry 
Antes,  the  elder,  the  same  who  afterward  joined  Zin- 
zendorf,  with  many  tears  entreated  Boehm  to  accept  a 
call  so  evidently  providential.  He  yielded,  and  on 
Oct.  25,  1725,  administered  the  communion  to  forty 
members.  In  the  next  month  he  served  it  to  thirty- 
seven  at  Schippach,  and  in  the  succeeding  month  to 
twenty-four  at  White  Marsh. 

Although  by  these  acts  Boehm  clearly  violated  the 
laws  of  his  church,  it  was  not  his  mind  to  let  license 
run  wild.  He  wanted  law  and  order,  and  submitted  to 
these  three  congregations  a  complete  constitution  writ- 
ten out  by  himself,  but  based  on  the  rules  of  the  home- 
church.  It  was  Presbyterian  in  government,  with  a 
consistory,  and  ruling  elders  of  equal  executive  au- 
thority with  the  pastor.  It  was  Reformed  in  dis- 
cipline after  the  old  type,  imposing  penalties  on 
those  that  led  a  life  unbecoming  a  Christian.  It  was 
Calvinistic  in  doctrine,  accepting  the  creeds  of  the  Re- 
formed church  in  Holland  at  that  time  the  leading 
power.  Special  mention  was  made  of  the  canons  of 
Dort,  still  less  was  the  Heidelberg  catechism  over- 
looked. 

Nor  was  Boehm  satisfied  with  introducing  this  con- 
stitution in  his  own  immediate  vicinity.  Two  years 
later  he  introduced  it  in  Conestoga  and  Tulpehocken 


The  Moravians.  47 


when  he  iheld  communion  service  there.  Seven  years 
later  he  had  it  adopted  by  the  Philadelphia  congrega- 
tion, and  two  years  later  in  Oley.  In  some  places, 
however,  he  met  with  stubborn  opposition.  German- 
town  and  Goshenhoppen  rejected  it. 

In  Lebanon,  Tempelman,  a  tailor  by  trade,  had  be- 
gun preaching  at  the  same  time  that  Boehm  began  in 
Falkner's  Swamp.  Boehm  went  to  him,  administered 
communion,  introduced  his  constitution,  and  appointed 
Tempelmann  his  schoolmaster  and  reader, — rather  a 
strange  assumption  of  authority  for  one  who  had  him- 
self not  been  ordained  to  the  ministry !  -But  he  seems 
to  have  been  a  man  of  more  than  average  ability,  who, 
having  his  own  strong  convictions  on  the  necessity  of  a 
written  constitution,  was  able  to  impress  others  with 
the  same.  After  a  while,  however,  Tempelmann  was 
urged  by  his  own  people,  who  esteemed  him  highly  for 
his  earnest  preaching,  to  act  as  their  pastor  and  to  ad- 
minister the  sacraments.  If  the  Falkner-Swamp  peo- 
ple could  raise  their  schoolmaster  to  clerical  dignity, 
why  should  the  Lebanon  church  be  forbidden  to  do 
the  same  ?  IMoreover,  the  distance  from  Boehm's  place 
of  residence  to  Lebanon  was  embarrassingly  great. 
Tempelmann  consented,  and,  like  Boehm,  added  a 
number  of  other  congregations  to  his  charge.  Tempel- 
mann died  in  1761,  the  highly  beloved  pastor  of  an 
extensive  field. 

But  the  lack  of  a  valid  ordination  came  to  be  felt 
very  painfully  when,  in  1727,  a  regular  minister  from 
the  Palatinate  made  his  appearance  in  Philadelphia, 


48  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

S.  M.  Weiss  by  name,  who  had  enjoyed  school  advan- 
tages far  superior  to  those  of  Boehm.  He  had  com- 
pleted his  theological  studies  in  Heidelberg,  had  made 
the  examinations  prescribed  by  law,  and  had  been  or- 
dained by  proper  authority  to  accompany  a  society  of 
400  emigrants  from  the  Palatinate,  that  left  in  1727. 
Upon  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia  he  was  at  once  called 
by  the  Reformed  congregation  there  to  become  their 
pastor. 

When  he  found  the  congregations  in  and  around 
Philadelphia  served  by  unordained  men,  he  felt  greatly 
shocked,  and  that  feeling  was  intensified  by  persons 
inimical  to  their  pastors,  such  as  will  be  found  wher- 
ever faithful  servants  of  Christ  are  preaching  the 
whole  truth,  not  forgetting  to  reprove  iniquity. 

In  Schippach  he  fell  in  with  an  elder,  George  Reiff 
by  name,  who  had  been  disciplined  by  Boehm  and  who, 
in  retaliation,  had  formed  a  counter-congregation.  He 
easily  succeeded  in  enlisting  in  his  enterprise  young 
Weiss,  unsuspicious,  inexperienced,  impulsive,  and  ag- 
gressive as  he  was.  Besides,  he  had  quite  insinuating 
ways  about  him,  as  was  shown  later  on  when  he  acted 
as  a  church  collector  in  Holland.  Unscrupulous 
enough  to  retain  for  his  private  use  the  money  col- 
lected, he  had  a  ready  flow  of  tears  and  an  imposing 
show  of  outraged  innocency  at  his  command,  when 
called  to  account  and  confronted  with  documentary 
proof  of  his  dishonesty.  He  even  could  forge  official 
letters  when  that  would  serve  his  purposes.  In  conse- 
quence,   Boehm    found    himself    severely    denounced 


The  Moravians.  49 


by  Weiss  here  and  in  his  other  congregations,  as  one 
that  had  no  right  to  perform  clerical  acts.  So  far  was 
Weiss  carried  away  by  his  zeal  that  with  assumed 
authority  he  issued  a  formal  summons  to  Boehm,  to 
be  tried  by  himself,  Weiss,  for  officiating  "without 
permission  of  the  clergy,  taking  for  a  pretext  that  this 
is  a  free  country."  The  summons  ended  with  these 
words : 

"Now,  therefore,  by  the  authority  of  the  Most  Rev- 
erend Ministry,  and  according  to  the  power  accorded 
to  a  regular  minister  of  Christ,  the  gentleman  is  hereby 
summoned  and  requested  to  appear  in  Philadelphia  be- 
fore the  Presbyterium*  of  the  church  at  the  house  of 
the  minister  in  order  to  be  examined  by  one  or  another 
of  those  present." 

All  this  may  sound  somewhat  pompous  and  hollow 
to  our  ears,  for  the  Philadelphia  congregation,  just  re- 
organized by  Weiss,  had  no  jurisdiction  whatever  over 
Boehm.  But  Weiss  was  puffed  up  by  a  strong  sense 
of  his  superior  learnedness.  In  the  "Philadelphia 
Mercury"  he  offered  his  services  as  a  teacher  in  logic, 
natural  philosophy,  metaphysics,  et  a.,  and  knowledge 
puffeth  up,  but  love  edifieth,  I.  Cor  Hi:  i. 

That  the  church  was  not  edified  by  his  course  was 
demonstrated  when  a  tumultuous  crowd  in  February 
1728,  met  before  Reiff's  house  in  Schippach,  where  the 
Sunday  services  had  been  conducted  so  far  by  Boehm, 
but  where  he  now  was  forbidden  entrance.    And  when, 

*In  Germany  the  consistory  of  a  congregation  is  called  Pres- 
byterium. 


50  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

in  the  following  year,  the  new  church-building  was 
dedicated,  and  Reiff  claimed  it  as  his  own  property  be- 
cause built  on  his  own  land,  Boehm  and  his  adherents 
were  ousted  for  good. 

In  Whitemarsh  similar  tumults  were  raised,  though 
here  Boehm's  friends  prevailed. 

But  God  is  good  and  wise,  and  sincere  followers  of 
Christ  receive  grace  enough  to  see  their  errors  and  to 
make  due  amends.  On  November  23,  of  the  next  year, 
1729,  an  impressive  and  solemn  event  occurred  in  New 
York.  In  the  Reformed  (Dutch)  church  there, 
Boehm,  with  three  of  his  elders,  before  a  large  congre- 
gation, and  Weiss  and  two  worthy  dominies.  Revs.  Boel 
and  Dubois,  after  appropriate  addresses,  ordained  and 
set  apart  for  the  holy  ministry  with  laying  on  of  their 
hands,  by  order  and  authority  of  the  classis  of  Am- . 
sterdam,  John  Philipp  Boehm,  of  Pennsylvania.  Then 
Weiss  stood  up  and  publicly  expressed  his  regrets  for 
what  he  had  done,  and  his  willingness  to  make  full  sat- 
isfaction, and  to  abstain  from  all  further  interference 
in  Boehm's  pastoral  work  at  Schippach,  Falkner's 
Swamp,  and  Whitemarsh.  Boehm  then  agreed  to  leave 
Weiss  in  charge  of  Philadelphia  and  Germantown. 

This  liappy  result  had  been  brought  about  by 
Boehm's  request  for  ordination  sent  to  the  church  in 
Holland,  which,  after  considerable  correspondence  and 
tedious  waiting,  had  been  granted,  to  be  carried  out  by 
the  New  York  pastors  who  then  were  members  of  the 
Amsterdam  classis. 

Thus  Boehm  came  to  be  a  member  of  the  classis  of 


The  Moravians.  51 


Amsterdam,  which  now  had  to  exercise  supervision 
over  his  pastoral  work  and  to_  protect  him  in  times  of 
need  and  danger.  True  to  his  duty,  as  soon  as  the 
classis  learned  of  Zinzendorf's  proposed  trip  to  Amer- 
ica, they  put  him  on  his  guard  and  sent  him  a  book  pub- 
lished by  one  of  their  pastors  against  the  Moravians. 
It  bore  quite  a  formidable  title : 

'The  naked  exposed  Enthusiasm,  Fanaticism  and 
corrupt  Mysticism  of  the  socalled  Moravians,  exhibited 
most  clearly  from  their  German  hymnbooks  and  other 
writings  and  their  agreement  with  the  corrupt  Mystics 
and  Fanatics  in  Germany,  and  the  Tremblers  (Quak- 
ers) in  England,  most  plainly  indicated,  tending  to 
repeated  faithful  warning  against  those  people,  and  to 
the  complete  defense  of  the  Pastoral  and  Paternal  Let- 
ter of  the  Reverend  Amsterdam  Consistory  against  the 
false  accusations  of  a  certain  anonymous  writing  added 
back  of  this.  Published  at  the  earnest  request  and  by 
the  order  of  the  Reverend  Consistory  and  from  the  love 
of  truth  which  is  unto  salvation,  by  Gerardus  Kulen- 
kamp,  preacher  at  Amsterdam.    At  Amsterdam,  1739." 

A  warning  coming  by  authority  of  his  classis  could 
not  fail  to  impress  Boehm  strongly.  When  Zinzendorf 
arrived  in  Philadelphia  it  was  Boehm's  Sunday  to 
preach  in  the  joint  Lutheran  and  Reformed  church 
there,*  on  Christmas  Sunday,  and  he  took  occasion 
earnestly  to  warn  his  people  against  him.    On  the  next 


*Weiss  had  left  years  ago. 


52  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Sunday  Zinzendorf  was  to  preach  for  the  Lutherans, 
and  Boehm,  instead  of  going  home  to  his  country  place, 
made  it  his  business  to  stay  in  Philadelphia,  the  rather 
since  some  of  the  Lutherans  requested  him  to  help  thern 
keep  out  Zinzendorf. 

On  the  Sunday  appointed,  when  he  approached  the 
church,  he  found  a  large  concourse  before  the  door, 
earnestly  discussing  the  expected  visit,  some  being  for, 
and  some  against  Zinzendorf's  preaching  there. 
Boehm  kept  his  peace  until  some  of  the  Lutherans 
asked  for  his  opinion. 

He  answered,  I  think  I  have  more  information 
about  these  things  than  many  of  you,  and  therefore  I 
must  protest  against  any  one  asserting  that  either  the 
Reformed  or  I  consent  to  Count  Zinzendorf's  preach- 
ing in  this  church.  Of  course,  we  Reformed  have  no 
right  to  interfere  with  your  disposal  of  your  Sunday. 
If  you  do  anything  to  your  own  injury,  we  wash  our 
hands  of  the  consequences. 

Zinzendorf  did  not  put  in  his  appearance  at  that  time, 
but  a  few  days  later  sent  a  letter  to  Boehm's  house  at 
Witpen,  by  special  messenger,  in  which  he  informed 
Boehm  that  the  Lutherans  had  asked  him,  Zinzendorf, 
to  preach.  Being  a  Lutheran  myself,  he  wrote,  and 
having  preached  in  many  a  Lutheran  church  before 
this,*  in  Germany,  I  feel  like  acceding  to  the  request. 
But  I  do  not  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  reprobration** 

♦Zinzendorf  had  in  Germany  taken  regular  orders  as  a  Luth- 
eran minister  with  that  very  object  in  view. 

**Teaching  that  God  elected  some  persons  to  be  lost  forever, 
a  doctrine  falsely  ascribed  to  the  Reformed. 


The  Moravicms.  53 


like  you.  On  this  account  I  would  ask  you  if  you  have 
any  authority  to  forbid  me.  In  that  case  I  should  pre- 
fer not  to  preach  in  the  church. 

Boehm  wrote  back  on  the  same  day,  that  as  to  his 
right  to  interfere,  he  could  not  answer  so  quickly,  but 
he  would  stand  by  what  he  had  said  on  the  previous 
Sunday  to  the  Lutherans  in  Philadelphia. 

Zinzendorf  did,  on  the  following  Sunday,  preach  for 
the  Lutherans,  and  he  even  succeeded  in  having  himself 
elected  their  regular  pastor.  Boehm,  however,  gave 
him  the  cold  shoulder.  Subsequently,  when  Zinzendorf 
asked  him  to  yield  him  his  Sunday  for  communion-ser- 
vice, he  curtly  refused.  And  the  Lutherans  continued 
their  arrangement  a  few  months  only.  In  June  they 
forcibly  ejected  Zinzendorf. 

In  August,  Boehm  took  a  step  still  more  decisive.  He 
published  his  "True  Letter  of  Warning  addressed  to 
the  Reformed  in  Pennsylvania"  containing  extensive 
quotations  from  Kulenkamp's  book,  together  with 
severe  criticisms  of  Bechtel's  catechism.  He  also  takes 
exception  to  the  irregular  proceedings  of  the  confer- 
ences. 

The  Moravians,  in  answer,  published  a  defense. 
Then  Boehm  issued  a  second  warning.  Guldin,  as 
stated  previously,  also  gave  into  print  his  warnings  on 
The  True  and  the  False  Union. 

These  earnest  efforts  had  their  effect  on  the  ranks 
of  those  who  had  entered  into  the  union  movement,  wa- 
vering already  from  other  causes.  One  congregation 
after  the  other  dismissed  their  Pro-Moravian  pastors. 


54  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


Even  Bechtel's  church  in  Germantown,  in  1744,  took 
that  step  and  then  called  Boehm  as  their  pastor.  Revs. 
Rieger  and  Lischy  returned  to  the  Reformed  fold. 
"The  Congregation  of  God  in  the  Spirit"  ceased  to 
exist. 

Thus  the  story  of  the  Galatians  of  old  was  repeated, 
who  "began  in  the  spirit  and  expected  to  be  perfected 
in  the  flesh,"  Gal.  iii :  3,  who  would  by  human  agencies 
■do  the  Spirit's  work.  Evidently  these  men  were  gen- 
uine Christians  and  worked  for  a  highly  commendable 
end,  viz. :  a  union  of  denominations.  To  this  day  their 
multiplicity  is  loudly  calling  for  a  remedy,  and  all  earn- 
est Christians  are  longing  for  the  time  when  there  will 
be  but  one  Shepherd  and  but  one  visible  fold.  But  the 
time  has  not  come  yet.  Still  less  had  it  come  then.  The 
one  wing  of  that  movement,  over-spiritual,  so  to  speak, 
relying  exclusively  on  direct  revelations  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  without  taking  the  trouble  involved  in  careful 
study  of  Scripture  and  patient  performance  of  duty, 
could  not  blend  with  the  other  wing,  overformal,  timid- 
ly clinging  to  forms  and  traditions  of  human  origin 
never  meant  for  permanency  nor  for  eternity.  The  free 
Jerusalem  which  is  above.  Gal.  iv :  26,  was  not  to  be  un- 
veiled then,  nor  has  she  been  unveiled  to  this  day.  The 
Spirit  and  the  bride  still  cry,  Come ! 


III.  THE  DEPUTIES  AND  SCHLATTER. 

Whilst  Boehm  was  struggling  manfully  to  preserve 
the  Reformed  church  in  Pennsylvania,  the  mother 
church  in  the  Netherlands  was  preparing  to  help  in 
other  ways.  Her  sympathy  had  frequently  been 
aroused  by  the  sufferings  of  German  Reformed  people 
on  their  way  to  America,  as  well  as  by  the  religious 
destitution  of  those  already  in  America. 

The  first  impetus  in  this  direction  was  given  when  in 
1709  the  Rhine  was  white  with  vessels  bearing  Palati- 
nate refugees  fleeing  from  Louis  XIV. 's  cruel  generals. 
Of  those  fifteen  thousand,  one-half  were  Reformed,  not 
destitute,  it  is  true,  of  religious  supplies,  for  they  had 
been  very  careful  to  bring  along  their  Bibles,  their 
prayerbooks,  and  their  catechisms,  but  they  were  so 
destitute  of  bodily  food  that  during  their  stay  in  the 
seaports  of  Holland  strenuous  efforts  on  a  very  large 
scale  had  to  be  made  for  their  relief. 

Soon  after  this,  from  the  Reformed  authorities  in  the 
Palatinate,  letters  and  appeals  for  assistance  in  provid- 
ing pastors  for  the  settlements  in  Pennsylvania  began 
to  reach  Holland. 

Then  came  Boehm's  request  for  ordination,  which 

led  to  his  and  Weiss'  becoming  regular  members  of  the 

classis  of  Amsterdam  in  1729. 

In  the  next  year  the  Reformed  congregation  of  Phil- 
55 


66 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

adelphia,  then  engaged  in  the  erection  of  a  church 
building,  resolved  to  send  their  pastor,  Weiss,  together 
with  Elder  Reiff,  of  Schippach,  on  a  collecting  tour  to 
the  Dutch  brethren.  In  those  times  Holland  was  well 
known  everywhere  as  the  richest  country  of  all  the 
world.  The  two  collectors  arrived  in  due  time,  and 
were  well  received,  for  the  Reformed  church  of  Hol- 
land had  a  warm  heart  for  suffering  saints,  in  spite  of 
their  much  abhorred  Calvinism  and  their  canons  of 
Dort.  Intelligent  and  pious  Zinzendorf  accused  them 
of  believing  in  reprobation,  and  to  our  times  they  are  by 
many  pious  souls  looked  upon  as  sold  to  the  idols  of 
stern  and  cruel  dogmatism.  But  often  men  are  without 
cause  afraid  of  things  without  reality. 

The  Hollanders  were  Calvinists,  but  that  doctrine 
had  by  no  means  stood  in  the  way  of  God's  Spirit  mak- 
ing His  abode  with  them.  Great  revivals  under  Un- 
tereyk,  Lodenstein,  Labadie,  e.  a.,  had  swept  over  the 
Whole  land.  Then  Coccejus  had  crystaHzed  the  new 
life,  and  taught  his  system  of  covenant-theology  mak- 
ing God's  covenant  with  His  people  the  fundamen- 
tal truth  of  Christian  religion.  According  to  this  con- 
ception of  theology,  man  is  by  no  means  consigned  to 
passive  inactivity  toward  God,  but  is  put  in  his  proper 
attitude  of  assuming  duties  and  making  pledges  and 
promises  to  God,  even  as  God  pledges  himself  to  man. 

Finally  Lampe  had  clinched  the  nail  with  his  Practi- 
cal System  of  Theology,  which  makes  the  salvation  of 
souls  the  main  and  never-to-be-lost-sight-of  object  of 
all  Scripture  study. 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  57 

By  professors  of  these  theological  schools  the  pas- 
tors then  in  office  had  received  their  training,  and  by 
them  many  hearts  had  been  awakened  to  the  new  life, 
the  life  of  love.  In  consequence,  the  collectors  from 
Pennsylvania  found  so  many  open  hands  that  over 
2,000  florins  were  contributed. 

But  this  was  not  all.  It  was  felt  that  the  time  had 
come  to  provide  for  permanent  relief.  Arrangements 
must  be  made  to  send  pastors  to  Pennsylvania  and  an- 
nual remittances  of  money,  to  aid  the  congregations 
there.  The  matter  was  laid  before  the  regular  judica- 
tories of  the  church,  the  synods  and  the  classes,  and 
after  due  consideration  a  standing  committee  was  ap- 
pointed of  commissioners,  or  deputies,  as  they  called 
them, — a  board  of  missions  we  should  call  it  now, — who 
should  obtain  and  collect  information,  should  examine 
into  the  merits  of  all  appeals,  and  should  plan  collec- 
tions. All  letters  and  all  moneys  were  to  pass  through 
their  hands. 

The  deputies  found  their  task  not  easy  to  accomplish. 
As  honey  attracts  flies  so  money  attracts  men  like  Judas 
or  serves  to  develop  the  Judas-nature  of  which  no  man 
is  absolutely  free.  Weiss  and  Reiff  were  no  angels. 
Weiss,  it  is  true,  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  a  collect- 
ing tour  without  reproach.  But  he  was  the  one  of  the 
two  least  exposed  to  temptation,  since  ReifT  had  been 
appointed  to  receive  all  the  money  collected  and  to  keep 
the  accounts,  probably  on  the  ground  that  elders  are 
better  treasurers  than  pastors,  and  that  pastors  should 
not  be  burdened   with   the  management    of   finances. 


58 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Scripture,  however,  does  not  seem  to  support  that  opin- 
ion, for  St.  Paul  proved  an  untiring  and  successful  col- 
lector for  the  saints  in  Jerusalem,  disinterested  to  a 
fault,  without  having  his  spiritual  activity  impaired  by 
the  temporal. 

However  that  may  be,  in  the  case  of  Weiss  and  Reiff 
the  elder  proved  the  weaker  man,  for  on  their  return 
home  he  kept  the  money  and  resisted  all  attempts  made 
by  his  constituents  in  Philadelphia  to  obtain  a  settle- 
ment. 

Now  Satan  had  good  reason  to  rejoice.  He  might 
hope  to  have  put  an  end  to  the  pious  work  of  the  depu- 
ties. Of  course,  they  would  now  in  disgust  abandon 
their  work  of  love,  and  in  consequence,  thousands  of 
shepherdless  sheep  in  Pennsylvania  would  fall  his 
prey.  But  if  such  was  his  calculation,  he  had  not  taken 
into  account  some  essential  factors  in  the  Lord's  affairs. 
Christ  does  not  rely  on  the  strength  of  man,  but  on  the 
power  of  His  own  redeeming  Love,  and  the  deputies, 
strict  Calvinists  that  they  were,  had  a  clear  conception 
of  sovereign  grace  able  to  save  man  though  totally  de- 
praved. Their  faith  was  not  of  the  emotional  cast,  eas- 
ily swayed  by  feelings  of  disgust  and  disappointment. 
They  believed  and  practiced  the  perseverance  of  saints. 
Besides,  if  the  Germans  are  said  to  be  slow  but  sure,  the 
Dutch  are  slower  still  and  surer  still.  They  did  not 
grow  weary  in  well  doing,  but  they,  very  wisely,  con- 
cluded to  act  with  more  caution  and  now  began  to  cast 
about  for  more  information  concerning  things  in  Penn- 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  59 

sylvania,  information  that  would  enable  them  to  carry 
on  with  better  success  the  work  assigned  to  them. 

Nor  was  their  firm  determination  shaken  when  new 
discouragements  came,  and  when  a  number  of  ministers 
well  recommended  to  them  by  high  church  officials  in 
Germany  for  missionary  work  in  Pennsylvania  proved 
entirely  unworthy  of  their  confidence. 

Their  search  for  more  information  for  some  time 
seemed  almost  hopeless.  They  wrote  to  Weiss  and 
Reiff,  but  could  elicit  no  answer  from  either.  Then 
they  addressed  their  letters  to  Boehm,  but  years  passed 
by  and  no  answer  came.  In  those  times  the  mail  ser- 
vice was  in  its  infancy;  the  ocean  was  crossed  in  sail- 
ing vessels  consuming  months  for  one  trip,  and  even  if 
Boehm  and  Weiss  wished  to  send  information,  not  to 
speak  of  Reifif,  reliable  information  was  not  easily  ob- 
tained. When  these  men  failed  them,  they  wrote  to 
whomsoever  they  could  think  of,  but  year  after  year 
elapsed  without  a  single  response. 

And  still  they  persevered,  these  noble  men,  noble  not 
by  virtue  of  birth  or  brilliant  deed,  but  ennobled  by  un- 
wavering faith  in  Christ,  their  Master,  by  whom  they 
stood  commissioned.  Full  fifteen  years  they  persevered, 
hoping  against  hope,  and  at  last  their  faith  received  its 
reward.  All  things  come  to  him  who  can  wait,  if  he 
waits  upon  the  Lord.  And  this  is  one  of  the  best  tests 
of  genuine  faith,  that  it  waits,  not  inactive,  refraining 
only  from  activity  not  indicated  by  God  himself  opening 
the  door  and  the  way  for  it. 

In  1745  full    reports    came   carefully    collected    by 


60  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Boehm,  and  no  sooner  had  they  been  received  and  read 
and  been  found  reliable,  than  the  deputies  set  to  work. 
They  had  the  reports  put  into  print  together  with  their 
own  appeals  for  men  and  means,  which  in  the  name  and 
by  authority  of  their  church  were  distributed  all  along 
the  Rhine.  One  copy  of  them  fell  into  the  hands  of  a 
young  minister  of  Switzerland,  who  took  it  to  heart, 

MICHAEL  SCHLATTER. 

Michael  Schlatter  was  bom  July  14,  1716.  His  par- 
ents were  able  to  give  him  a  college  education  and  a 
university  training  for  the  ministry,  but  he  was  not  the 
best  of  students.  By  his  lively  disposition  he  was  fre- 
quently carried  away  into  indiscreet  and  even  immoral 
acts.  Caring  more  for  adventure  and  excitement  than 
for  tame  life  at  home,  he  several  times  changed  his 
place  of  study  and  some  times  would  abandon  his  stud- 
ies altogether,  to  take  up  other  pursuits.  He  spent  some 
time  at  Helmstadt,  in  Northern  Germany,  and  quite  a 
number  of  years  in  Holland,  at  that  time  the  golden 
goal  of  all  fortune-seekers.  But  better  councils  again 
prevailed  and  he  was  enabled  to  complete  his  studies. 
Finally,  when  thirty  years  old,  he  was  put  in  charge  of 
a  small  suburban  church  in  his  native  city,  with  a  salary 
of  no  more  than  twenty  dollars  a  year  in  our  money. 
But  his  troubles  were  not  over.  Again  he  was  betrayed 
by  his  passionate  temper  into  serious  indiscretions  and 
had  to  leave  his  home  abruptly,  in  disgrace.* 

*The  details  are  recorded  in  a  manuscript  chronicle  of  the 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  61 

Going  to  Heidelberg,  where  he  had  on  former  jour- 
neys become  acquainted  with  men  high  in  position,  who 
received  him  kindly,  he  there  saw  the  appeal  sent  out 
by  the  deputies,  and  perceiving  his  opportunity  he  at 
once  went  to  Holland.  By  his  connections  in  Heidel- 
berg he  had  been  given  the  best  of  credentials  and  rec- 
ommendations. In  those  times  things  of  this  sort  were 
not  done  with  the  scrupulous  care  made  possible  in  our 
times  of  railroad,  telegraph,  and  telephone,  and  be- 
sides, America  was  looked  upon  as  the  country  where 
persons  of  a  good  education,  who  had  lost  standing  at 


St.  Gall  clergy,  preserved  in  the  archives  of  that  city.  He  was 
seduced  by  an  abandoned  woman  living  separated  from  her 
husband.  The  same  archives  contain  three  letters  by  the 
woman's  father,  Dean  Bleyl. 

The  story  of  Schlatter's  fall  might  have  been  passed  over 
in  silence  here,  as  it  has  been  suppressed  in  all  books  so  far 
published  on  Schlatter  and  his  times.  Love  is  to  cover  the 
multitude  of  sins.  But  that  course  would  have  left  unex- 
plained so  many  occurrences  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
church  and  would  so  have  misled  the  reader  into  misconcep- 
tions of  important  events  and  persons,  that  this  narrative  would 
have  become  fiction  rather  than  history. 

The  Bible  does  not  hide  nor  ignore  the  sins  of  saints.  Da- 
vid's fall  and  Peter's  denial  and  many  discreditable  acts  of 
the  Patriarchs  are  recorded  without  a  word  in  extenuation, 
so  that  the  readers  may  learn  the  lesson  of  sinners  saved  by 
grace,  from  deep  degradation  to  glorious  exaltation.  But 
the  Bible  does  not  stop  with  the  account  of  the  saints'  fall. 
By  faith  the  fallen  souls  rise  to  a  full  and  complete  abandon- 
ment of  that  special  sin.  Peter  never  again  denied  Christ 
after  he  had  been  pardoned.  And  as  for  Schlatter,  he  never 
afterward  fell  into  the  same  sin,  but  lived  chaste  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  his  enemies  would  hav- 
made  it  known.  And  he  had  many  of  them,  bitter  and  re- 
lentless. 


62  Thii  Pioneers  oj  the  Reformed  Church. 

home,  might  rehabiHtate  themselves,  and  such  were, 
to  this  end,  readily  given  clean  papers. 

The  deputies  read  Schlatter's  papers,  conversed 
freely  with  him,  submitted  him  to  a  rigorous  examina- 
tion, and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  the  very 
man  they  needed  to  organize  the  Pennsylvania  church. 
Five  months  after  leaving  St.  Gall,  on  May  29,  he  set 
sail  for  America. 

By  his  commission  he  was  invested  with  the  authority 

of  a   Visitor  Extraordinary,  an  office  not  new   in   the 

Netherland  church.     It  does  not  mean  inspector.     An 

inspector  may  act,  may  punish,  may  order  work  on  his 

own  judgment,  but  the  power  conferred  bv  the  deputies 

is  the  one  defined  in  Sec.  44  of  the  church  constitution 

of  Dort,  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land  : 

"Zal  00k  de  classis  eenige  von  haaren  Dienaaren,  ter 
jninsten  twe,  van  de  oudste,  ervarenste  en  jijeschickteste 
.-authoriseeren,  oni  in  alle  Kerken  van  de  Htaden  so  wel  as 
-van  het  platte  Land,  alle  jaar  visitatie  te  doeu  en  toe  to 
;sien,  of  de  Leeraars,  Kerkenraden  en  schoolmasters  haar 
ampt  getrouwelijk  warneraen." 

The  classis  shall  also  authorize  some  of  its  ministers, 
itwo  at  the  least,  from  the  oldest,  most  experienced,  and 
anost  suitable,  to  bold  visitation  each  year  in  the  cities  as 
■well  as  in  the  open  country,  and  to  ascertain  whether  the 
ministers,  the  consistories,  and  the  schoolmasters  faithfully 
perform  the  duties  incumbent  upon  them. 

These  visitors  were  to  report  to  classis,  and  classis 
was  to  take  action  if  necessary.  So  Schlatter  was  to 
make  report,  not  to  act.  Schlatter,  however,  was 
authorized  to  do  some  things  which  could  not  be  left  to 
a  classis  so  far  away ;  he  was  to  organize  the  Reformed 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  63 

pastors  and  elders  into  a  coetus,  a  conference  subject  to 
classis,  not  empowered  to  ordain  or  to  discipline  minis- 
ters or  to  pass  on  church  ordinances.  The  Dutch 
churches  in  New  York  province,  about  ten  or  twelve  in 
number,  were  just  then  in  the  same  manner  constituted 
a  coetus,  or  "conferentie,"  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
Amsterdam  classis. 

On  Sept.  6,  1746,  after  a  two  months'  sail  to  Boston, 
then  the  largest  cit}^  in  North  America,  Schlatter  ar- 
rived in  Philadelphia,  at  that  time  a  city  of  about  10,000 
inhabitants  living  in  2,300  houses  mostly  built  of  stone, 
with  seven  churches  and  two  Quaker  meeting-houses. 

It  would  have  been  right  for  Schlatter,  after  so  ted- 
ious a  journey,  to  take  a  rest  here,  but  such  was  not  his 
way  of  doing  things.  One  day  only  he  remained,  long 
enough  to  arrange  for  permanent  lodgings  with  one  of 
the  Reformed  elders  there.  Perhaps  he  was  burning 
to  make  amends  for  his  grievous  fall  and  to  show  his 
gratitude  for  the  Lord's  merciful  dealings  with  him. 
The  day  after  his  arrival,  he  went  to  Boehm  in  Witpen, 
who  gave  him  a  warm  welcome.  Imagine  how  glad 
this  aged  servant  of  the  Lord  was,  who  had  for  many 
years  been  defending  his  church  against  her  adversar- 
ies, who  liad  found  it  so  hard  to  preserve  and  to  foster 
the  spirit  of  brotherly  love  between  the  few  ministers 
then  laboring  in  the  field,  and  who  knew  of  the  great 
spiritual  destitution  of  the  congregations  then  about 
fifty  in  number.  Imagine  what  must  have  been  his  joy 
when  in  the  solitude  of  his  rural  home  there  appeared 
before  him,  altogether  unexpectedly,  an  ambassador  of 


64  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reform<'d  Church. 

the  stron^^  and  liberal  mother  church  in  the  Netherlands 
with  a  message  of  love  and  a  promise  of  assistance. 

The  interview  of  these  two  men  must  have  brought 
extraordinary  gladness  to  their  hearts,  and  their  united 
prayers  of  thanksgiving  would  certainly  prove  a  sweet 
savor  to  God  as  well  as  a  refreshing  dew  to  their  own 
souls.  But  Schlatter  gave  himself  no  rest.  The  very 
next  day  he  set  out  again  and  went  eight  miles  further 
to  see  Reiff,  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  settlement  of  his 
now  sixteen  year  old  accounts  as  collector  in  Holland. 
Returning  next  day  to  Philadelphia  he  investigated  the 
whereabouts  of  130  German  bibles  sent  from  Holland 
four  years  ago,  and  found  them  in  good  order  for  distri- 
bution. Then  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  congrega- 
tion in  Philadelphia  and  prepared  its  members  for  a 
solemn  communion-service  held  in  common  with 
Boehm,  in  which  one  hundred  communicants  took  part, 
men  and  women  who  never  had  seen  in  this  new  world 
two  ministers  together  in  one  church  distributing  the 
sacred  seals  of  God's  promise  in  Christ. 

Immediately  after  this,  the  two  visited  the  congrega- 
tion in  Gennantown.  the  same  that  under  Bechtel  had 
gone  over  to  the  Moravian  conference,  but  had  dis- 
missed Bechtel  in  1744,  and  had  elected  Boehm  their 
pastor.  This  congregation  was  now  thoroughly  reor- 
ganized, and  was,  together  with  Philadelphia,  consti- 
tuted a  charge  to  be  served  by  Schlatter. 

On  next  Friday  we  find  him  in  Bucks  county  with  a 
Reformed  pastor  named  Dorsius,  who  in  former  years 
had  been  in  correspondence  with  the  deputies,  and  liad 


The  Reformed  Churcb  at  Philadelphia  1747-1772. 


The  Liasebuel  Church  a.  St.  Gall,  Schlatter's  first  charge. 
64 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  65 

even  been  over  to  Holland  in  1743,  but  who  had  acted 
in  a  very  independent  way.  Here  he  was  received 
kindly,  but  was  not  permitted  to  confer  with  the  consis- 
tory in  his  official  capacity. 

On  the  same  Friday  he  made  the  thirty-five  miles 
back  to  Philadelphia,  on  horseback  of  course,  and  on  the 
ensuing  Sunday  preached  there  and  obtained  a  formal 
call  as  their  pastor,  sixty  members  subscribing  about 
sixty-six  dollars  toward  his  support.  Boehm,  who  now 
was  sixty-three  years  old,  acquiesced,  for  the  time  be- 
ing at  least. 

On  the  Monday  following  he  again  traveled  thirty- 
five  miles  to  Old  Goshenhoppen,  where  Pastor  Weiss 
preached,  who  had  been  to  Holland  with  Elder  Reiff, 
and  whom  he  prevailed  upon  to  accompany  him  for  a 
second  interview  with  Reiff.  They  had  a  difficult  task 
before  them.  That  dishonest  man  had  many  profuse 
tears  to  shed  over  his  own  imaginary  grievances,  and 
many  extravagant  charges  to  make  for  his  expenses  and 
■personal  labors.  He  would  in  no  wise  disburse.  But 
Schlatter  would  not  yield.  A  final  settlement  was 
reached  subsequently,  many  months  later,  and  Reiff 
gave  up  a  little  less  than  one-half  of  his  collections. 

From  here  Schlatter  went  to  Oley,  to  where  Weiss 
had  preceded  him,  and  together  they  journeyed  to 
Tulpehocken,  one  of  the  oldest  Reformed  congregations 
in  Pennsylvania.  Here  they  met  Boehm  by  previous 
appointment,  who  had  prepared  the  congregation  for 
the  Lord's  Supper.  Tlie  celebration  of  the  holy  sacra- 
ment was  more  impressive  yet  than  that  in  Philadel- 


66  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

phia.  Many  people  were  moved  to  tears  by  the  un- 
wonted sight  of  as  many  as  three  ministers  at  a  time 
together  serving  at  the  Lord's  table.  The  bread  of  life 
was  broken  to  several  hundreds  of  communicants. 
Such  an  abundance  seemed  almost  miraculous  in  those 
time's  of  pioneer  life  and  spiritual  famine. 

Having  more  fully  organized  this  old  congregation, 
on  the  next  day  Schlatter  went  to  Lancaster,  then  a 
city  of  about  500  houses.  Here  Rieger  had  not  been  al- 
lowed to  preach  since  the  days  of  the  Moravians,  and 
Schlatter  was  in  hopes  that  now  a  reconciliation  be- 
tween the  pastor  and  the  congregation  might  be  ef- 
fected, for  Rieger  continued  to  reside  in  Lancaster 
and  was  serving  some  small  country  congregation. 
Schlatter's  hopes,  however,  were  not  realized.  Still  the 
visit  proved  by  no  means  barren  of  results,  for  Rieger 
now  saw  into  the  desirability  of  good  order  in  church, 
and  consented  to  help  Schlatter  organize  a  coetus.  He 
accompanied  him  back  to  Philadelphia,  a  distance  of 
sixty  miles,  where  on  the  12th  of  October,  1746,  by  pre- 
vious appointment,  Boehm  and  Weiss  met  with  them. 

This  was  the  first  time  these  three  pioneer  pastors 
ever  met  together,  although  they  had  been  laboring  in 
the  same  district  for  nearly  twenty  years.  Boehm  had 
been  with  Weiss,  and  Weiss  had  been  with  Rieger,  and 
Rieger  had  been  with  Boehm,  but  the  three  had  never 
been  together  at  once,  and  frequently  they  had  been 
separated  by  jealousy  and  misunderstanding.  Now 
Schlatter,  after  five  weeks  of  travel  and  hardship,  saw 
them  reconciled,  blessing  the  ties  that  bound  them  to- 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  67 

gether,  and  feeling  that  their  aims  and  joys  and  hopes 
were  one  and  the  same.  And  now  they  were  able  to 
devise  the  steps  necessary  for  the  organization  of  the 
intended  coetus  to  be  held  next  year. 

Well  might  Schlatter  now  take  a  little  rest  and  be 
thankful,  and  well  might  he  now  sit  down  to  write  out 
his  first  report  to  the  deputies.  And  still  better  reason 
had  the  deputies  to  rejoice  and  to  praise  God  when  they 
received  his  report.  With  tears  of  joy  and  gratitude 
they  wrote  back : 

Blessed  are  the  peacemakers,  for  they  shall  he  called 
the  children  of  God. 


Before  winter  set  in,  Schlatter  made  another  journey, 
revisiting  those  congregations  that  needed  encourage- 
ment, and  some  others  not  reached  previously,  that  had 
by  letter  asked  him  for  ministerial  service.  The  win- 
ter he  spent  in  pastoral  work  together  with  Boehm. 

In  the  next  year,  1747,  during  the  months  of  April 
and  May,  he  made  what  he  himself  called  his  grand 
journey,  which  extended  as  far  as  to  what  now  is  called 
Frederick  City  in  Maryland,  a  distance  of  130  miles. 
Traveling  in  those  days,  on  horseback,  by  bridlepath, 
through  primeval  forest  and  rocky  mountain,  meant  a 
great  deal  of  hardship  and  privation.  One  day  he  rode 
15  miles  without  seeing  a  house  or  a  human  being,  but 
the  worst  part  of  it  was  the  crossing  of  rivers,  which 
seldom  could  be  accomplished  without  danger  of  life. 
Once  Schlatter  had  to  cross  the  Susquehanna  then 
swollen  with  the  spring  rains,  two  miles  wide.     The 


68  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church- 

boat  was  manned  by  twelve  oarsmen,  and  still  they  had 
hard  work  to  stem  the  powerful  current.  When  they 
neared  the  banks  they  could  not  land  from  their  boat, 
but  must  mount  horses.  The  slippery  rocks  and  the 
half  melted  ice  greatly  troubled  the  horses,  causing 
them  frequently  to  lose  their  footing.  But  he  was  richly 
rewarded  for  his  labors.  He  found  an  area  of  7,000 
acres  exclusively  settled  by  Reformed  people,  thrifty 
farmers  on  the  richest  land,  and  at  the  same  time  ex- 
tremely anxious  for  the  bread  of  life.  They  were  then 
engaged  in  the  erection  of  a  church.  Eighty-six  mem- 
bers came  to  commune  at  the  Lord's  table,  and  about 
200  dollars  in  our  present  currency  were  subscribed  for 
a  pastor's  salary.  The  schoolmaster  of  this  congrega- 
tion was  Mr.  Schley,  from  whom  Admiral  Schley,  of 
Santiago  renown,  descended.  Dr.  Ph.  Schaff's  wife 
also  was  a  Schley. 

His  next  trip  was  to  New  York,  where  he  secured 
about  $250  for  the  church  in  Philadelphia.  So  far  the 
congregation  had  worshiped  in  a  dilapidated  barn- 
like building,  but  now  they  were  erecting  a  better  edi- 
fice, though  at  present  it  would  hardly  be  thought  suit- 
able. It  was  in  the  form  of  a  hexagon,  and  the  roof 
had  the  form  of  a  pyramid  with  a  steeple  on  the  apex. 
But  it  was  not  for  this  church  mainly,  that  Schlatter 
went.  His  main  object  was  to  consult  with  the  Dutch 
brethren  there  about  the  organization  of  coetus.  He 
also  by  correspondence  and  circular  agitated  the  mat- 
ter, and  his  efforts  were  crowned  with  success.  On 
Sept.  29,  1747,  four  ministers,  Schlatter,  Boehm,  Weiss 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter,  69 

and  Rieger,  and  twenty-eight  elders  met  in  Schlaitter's 
house  in  Philadelphia.  They  organized  by  making 
Schlatter  president  and  Boehm  secretary,  listened  to 
Schlatter's  reports,  made  reports  to  the  deputies,  and 
acted  on  requests  from  congregations,  also  on  Rev. 
I.ischy's  request  to  be  received.  He  had  been  in  the 
Moravian  movement  and  had  come  to  see  his  error 
some  time  ago.  Coetus  resolved  to  recommend  him  to 
the  deputies  for  reinstatement.  Tempelman  also  was 
recommended  to  them  for  ordination. 

Shortly  after  this  meeting  Schlatter  married  a 
daughter  of  a  'highly  connected  family  in  New  York, 
with  whom  he  lived  happily  for  more  than  forty  years. 
But  he  did  not  stay  at  home  very  long  to  enjoy  his 
honeymoon.  In  October  he  made  a  journey  to  see 
about  Lischy  in  York ;  in  November  to  minister  to  the 
needs  of  some  congregations  in  New  Jersey.  In  May, 
1748,  he  went  on  a  journey  still  more  extensive  than 
the  "grand  journey"  of  1747  to  Maryland.  After  hav- 
ing revisited  the  Frederick  people  and  other  settlements 
in  that  colony,  he  crossed  over  into  Virginia  to  Freder- 
icktown  and  to  New  Germantown,  where  he  met  with 
those  pious  people  from  Siegen,  who,  in  1714,  under 
Pastor  Haegener  had  organized  the  first  German  Re- 
formed congregation  of  North  America,  on  the  Rappa- 
hannock. 

Before  going  to  Maryland  and  Virginia,  he  had  in 
York  made  an  appointment  with  Lischy,  to  be  back  by 
the  17th,  and  had  also  asked  Rieger  to  be  there  at  that 
time,  in  order  that  Lischy's  case  might  be  considered 


70  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Ohurch. 

more  fully.  It  hardly  seems  credible  that  he  should 
have  been  able  to  keep  this  appointment,  for  on  the 
13th  he  was  in  the  Virg-inia  settlements  and  on  the  15th 
in  Frederick,  Md.,  laboriously  wending  his  way  through 
almost  trackless  forests,  crossing  large  rivers  and 
rough  mountains.  But  when  the  appointed  day  came, 
Schlatter  was  found  in  York,  and  so  was  Rieger.  Their 
object  was  to  reconcile  the  large  congregation  there 
with  Lischy.  In  order  to  convince  them  of  Lischy's 
having  fully  abandoned  his  Moravian  errors,  they 
asked  him  to  preach  a  sermon  on  Matth.  xxii :  14, 
"Many  are  called,  but  few  chosen."  Since  the  Morav- 
ians objected  strongly  to  the  Reformed  views  on  pre- 
destination, by  preaching  on  this  text  Lischy  was  to 
show  on  which  side  he  stood.  The  sermon  proved 
highly  satisfactory  to  all,  and  henceforth  Lischy  was 
permitted  again  to  preach.  But  he  was  not  to  admin- 
ister the  sacraments  until  the  deputies  would  be  heard 
from.  The  Lord's  Supper  was  administered  afterward 
to  265  persons.  Indeed,  there  was  a  large  field  white 
for  the  harvest. 

Schlatter's  great  joy  over  the  rich  blessings  be- 
stowed by  God  on  his  labors  so  far  was  increased  by 
another  success.  On  Aug.  13.  two  new  ministers  ar- 
rived, sent  over  by  the  deputies,  and  on  Sept.  15.  a  third 
one  arrived.  Their  names  were  Bartholomaeiis,  Hoch- 
reiitiner,  and  Leidich.  All  three  had  received  a  univers- 
ity education,  and  came  well  recommended  for  their 
piety  and  their  character. 

With  them  the  second  coetus,  opened  Sept.  28,  al- 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  71 


though  Weiss  was  absent,  counted  six  ministers  pres- 
ent. There  were  also  present  seven  elders.  The  open- 
ing sermon  was  preached  by  Rieger  on  Psalm  133,  "Be- 
hold how  pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in 
unity,"  a  favorite  Scripture  of  the  Reformed  people. 
To  this  day,  whenever  pastors  would  report  what  is 
best  in  their  work,  they  report  that  peace  and  harmony 
are  prevailing,  and  whenever  meetings  of  classis  or 
synod  are  to  be  praised,  this  is  their  story,  and  this  is 
their  song.  The  Reformed  church  is  emphatically 
peaceful.  Some  may  wish  the  church  were  made  of 
sterner  stuff.  They  may  desire  more  courageous  fight- 
ing and  standing  up  for  fundamental  truths.  We  are 
the  church  militant  they  say,  and  glorious  in  their  eyes 
is  the  time  when  the  trumpet  sounds  and  the  war  steed 
rears.  But  our  making  is  of  God,  and  He  taught  us  to 
love  peace  above  all  things.  Ps.  100:  3,  "The  Lord  is 
God.  It  is  He  that  has  made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves ; 
we  are  His  people  and  the  sheep  of  His  pasture." 

The  proceedings  consisted  mainly  in  adopting  a 
creed  and  a  church  constitution.  The  creed,  as  pro- 
posed by  the  deputies,  was  the  Heidelberg  catechism, 
and  the  canons  of  Dort.  Rieger,  however,  was  excused 
from  subscribing,  on  account  of  his  scruples  on  predes- 
tination. Boehm's  constitution  of  1725  was  adopted 
with  some  additions.  Coetus  was  careful  to  preserve 
the  equality  of  ministers  by  giving  the  presidency  in  ro- 
tation to  one  after  the  other.  The  first  coetus  had  been 
presided  over  by  Schlatter,  Boehm  was  president  of 
the  second,  and  Rieger  was  elected  for  the  third.    By  a 


72  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

curious  arrangement,  a  relic  perhaps  of  the  old-coun- 
try-ideas on  promotion,  the  secretary  elected  for  one 
year  was  by  that  act  made  president  for  the  next.  An- 
other such  relic  was  the  establishment  of  a  tariff  for 
clerical  service,  90  cents  for  marriag-es  and  60  cents  for 
funerals.  But  the  Reformed  character  of  the  church 
was  preserved  by  having  no  fees  for  baptisms. 

Of  the  new  ministers,  Leidich  was  assigned  to  the 
Faulkner  Swamp  charge,  Bartholomaeus  to  Tulpehock- 
en  and  Hochreutiner  to  Lancaster.  But  though  man 
proposes,  it  is  God  who  disix)ses.  The  new  American 
church  was  early  made  to  learn  this  lesson.  When 
Hochreutiner  had  his  horse  standing  ready  for  his 
journey  to  Lancaster,  he  tried  to  extract  a  bullet  from 
his  gun ;  it  went  off,  and  he  was  killed  instantly.  His 
opening  sermon,  carefully  written  out,  was  found  in 
his  pocket.  It  was  very  appropriately  based  on  L  Sam. 
iii:i-ii,  "And  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  precious 
(scarce)  in  those  days,  and  there  was  no  open  vision 
(SKenig  2Bei§[agung),"  etc.  His  theme  and  disposition 
w^as,  The  Call  of  Samuel;  why  Samuel  was  called; 
when  he  was  called ;  what  he  was  called  to  do. 

Why  did  the  Lord  do  this?  His  dealings  with  the 
church  are  mysterious  and  past  finding  out,  nor  may 
shortsighted  man  presume  to  pry  into  the  secrets  of 
His  plans.  But  the  great  poet  of  England  truly  says 
that  coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before  them,  and 
Scripture  admonishes  us  to  watch  and  pray,  for  we 
know  not  what  hour  the  thief  may  come.  And  so,  if  God 
sends  afflictions  extraordinary,  the  wise  will  take  the 


Th^  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  73 

warning,  and  remember  how  frail  a  creature  is  sinful 
man,  and  how  foolish  it  would  be  in  this  world  to  look 
for  uninterrupted  success.  If  man  were  free  from 
pride  and  presumption  God  would  indeed  always  con- 
tinue to  "build  the  house  of  His  people,  to  fill  their 
quivers  with  children,  and  to  give  His  beloved  sleep." 
Ps.  127.  But  no  man  is  free  from  pride  and  presump- 
tion, and  so  God  gives  His  beloved  trouble. 

In  consequence,  this  is  what  happened. 

Schlatter  had  acted  somewhat  inconsiderately  and 
highhandedly  in  his  dealings  with  Boehm.  One  of  his 
first  steps  taken  in  Philadelphia  had  been  to  have  him- 
self elected  pastor  there  and  in  Germantown,  with 
Boehm's  acquiescence  to  be  sure,  and  yet  it  could  not 
have  been  done  without  somewhat  grieving  him.  No 
pastor  likes  to  have  his  most  important  fields  pass  into 
other  hands.  Then,  in  Boehm's  congregation  of  Falk- 
ner's  Swamp,  Schlatter  baptized  Elder  Dr.  Miller's  wife 
and  her  eight  children,  without  consulting  Boehm. 
Then  he  had  changed  the  consistory  of  the  Philadel- 
phia congregation  by  a  new  election,  without  Boehm, 
had  doubled  the  number  of  elders  and  deacons,  and 
making  all  of  them  stand  up  in  line,  had  ordained  all, 
the  old  ones  as  well  as  the  newly  elected.  Finally  he 
had  for  Boehm's  liturgy  of  the  Palatinate  substituted 
his  own  liturgy  of  St.  Gall. 

For  a  time  Boehm  had  submitted  without  protest,  lest 
the  establishment  of  the  new  church-organization 
should  be  imperiled.  But  after  the  second  coetus, 
when  the  formation  of  a  permanent  authority  seemed 


74  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

well  secured,  he  felt  free  to  address  a  long  letter  to  the 
deputies,  in  which  he  suggested  the  propriety  of  in- 
vesting coetus  with  greater  authority,  and  limiting  that 
of  Schlatter.  Among  other  points  he  made  was,  that 
the  deputies'  official  correspondence  might  now  be  di- 
rected to  coetus,  also  the  missionary  moneys  to  be  dis- 
tributed among  the  ministers. 

Soon  after,  Boehm  died,  April  29,  1749,  and  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers.  But  that  event  did  not  put  an 
end  to  these  complications,  for  now  Schlatter  proposed 
to  the  church  in  Philadelphia  to  give  him  a  formal  call 
as  sole  pastor,  and  accompanied  the  proposition  with 
some  demands  rather  distasteful  to  the  people.  Had  he 
known  their  sentiments  toward  him,  he  would  probably 
have  made  no  such  demands,  for  they  were  by  no  means 
well  pleased  with  his  services.  He  was  not  a  very  im- 
pressive speaker  nor  did  he  possess  the  gift  of  win- 
ning ways.  Even  where  he  meant  to  confer  favors,  he 
often  gave  offense  by  the  manner  in  which  he  con- 
ferred them. 

Schlatter  wanted  a  call  for  life,  "as  long  as  he 
preached  the  pure  Gospel  and  led  a  correct  life."  But 
the  consistory  rejected  that  form  and  proposed  another, 
which  gave  the  consistory  power  to  dismiss  him  in  case 
he  did  not  teach  and  walk  correctly.  Schlatter  ap-« 
pealed  to  the  congregation,  and  himself  took  the  vote  in 
a  rather  singular  form.  "All  that  are  on  my  side,"  he 
said,  "put  on  their  hats."  But  the  number  of  hats  put 
on  was  by  no  means  overwhelmingly  large,  and  the  re- 
sult remained  doubtful. 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  75 

At  this  juncture  new  complications  arose  from  a 
well  meant  act  of  the  deputies,  who  sent  a  new  minister, 
a  Swiss,  Steiner  by  name,  that  happened  to  be 
acquainted  with  Schlatter's  antecedents.  When  he  ar- 
rived during  Schlatter's  absence  from  Philadelphia, 
Schlatter's  opponents  at  once  laid  hold  of  him,  took  him 
into  their  houses,  and  were  by  him  informed  of  Schlat- 
ter's shame.  An  election  for  pastor  was  held,  and 
Steiner  obtained  140  votes,  whilst  no  voted  for  Schlat- 
ter. Of  course,  very  many  of  the  votes  cast  were  il- 
legal, for  the  number  of  members  entitled  to  a  vote  was 
by  no  means  that  large.  Moreover,  Schlatter  contended 
that  the  congregation  had  no  right  to  dismiss  him;  he 
appealed  to  the  coetus,  and  that  body  decided  in  hi.-; 
favor,  because  Steiner  had  no  documxcntary  evidence  to 
prove  his  assertions,  whilst  Schlatter  could  produce  the 
best  of  testimonials  and  recommendations  from  the 
proper  authorities. 

But  Steiner's  party  would  not  acknowledge  the  au- 
thority  of  coetus,  and  some  very  disgraceful  proceed- 
ings ensued.  To  insure  possession,  Steiner's  friends 
went  into  the  church  on  Saturday  evening  and  stayed 
there  all  night,  with  a  guard  of  twenty- four  men.  When 
Schlatter  came  with  his  friends,  at  the  time  of  service, 
they  found  Steiner  in  the  pulpit.  Schlatter  called  upon 
him  in  the  name  of  God  to  vacate  it,  but  to  no  effect. 
Then  his  friends  employed  a  stratagem  not  unfre- 
quently  made  use  of  in  similar  circumstances  by  Re- 
formed congregations.  In  those  days  the  Reformed  in 
church  sang  the  psalms,  and  when  they  wanted  to  tire 


76  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

out  an  obnoxious  preacher,  they  would  intone  the  1 19th 
psalm,  which  has  176  verses.  And  they  chanted  very 
slowly.  Before  the  singing  was  over,  officers  of  the 
civil  magistrate  made  their  appearance,  who  vacated  the 
building,  locked  the  door,  and  kept  the  key. 

Nothing  now  remained  but  to  institute  legal  proceed- 
ings. However,  a  well  meaning  attorney  suggested  a 
compromise,  and  finally  the  whole  question  was  by  com- 
mon consent  given  into  the  hands  of  six  arbitrators. 
All  of  these  were  Quakers,  except  one  who  was  an 
Episcopalian.  Having  heard  both  parties  and  exam- 
ined all  the  evidence,  the  arbitrators  decided  in  favor 
of  Schlatter.  The  accusations  brought  forward  by 
Steiner's  adherents  against  Schlatter's  conduct  in 
America  could  not  be  sustained,  and  the  reports  about 
his  conduct  in  St.  Gall  were  set  aside. 

Schlatter  and  his  friends  were  now  again  put  in  pos- 
session of  the  church  building;  Steiner's  friends  formed 
another  congregation  and  built  a  large  new  church,  but 
the  disorderly  character  of  the  ruling  men  led  to  dis- 
sensions among  themselves.  Two  years  later  Steiner 
left  them,  and  the  whole  enterprise  eventually  failed. 

For  Schlatter,  however,  it  was  a  barren  victory;  his 
influence  was  permanently  impaired,  not  in  his  con- 
gregation only,  but  among  his  fellow  ministers  also. 
The  controversy  in  Philadelphia  had  lasted  from  Octo- 
ber, 1749,  to  April,  1750,  and  during  all  this  time  very 
little  could  be  done  to  supply  the  many  vacant  congre- 
gations with  pastors.  Steiner  had  turned  against 
Schlatter,  and  no  new  minister  was  sent  over  in  1750. 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  77 


Nor  did  any  funds  arrive.  Boehm  had  died.  To  make 
things  more  gloomy,  Bartholomaeus  became  insane. 
So  discouraged  were  the  few  pastors  left,  that  no  rec- 
ords are  extant  of  the  coetus  that  met  in  November, 
1750.  At  a  special  coetus  held  December  13,  the  con- 
clusion was  reached  that  Schlatter  should  make,  another 
journey  to  Europe  for  ministers  and  subventions. 

It  was  winter,  and  the  regular  season  for  navigation 
in  those  days  of  sailing  vessels  had  closed.  But  the 
necessities  of  the  case  seemed  so  urgent  that  as  early  a.i 
February  5,  175 1  Schlatter  set  sail.  With  his  cus- 
tomary zeal  he  applied  himself  most  diligently  to  the 
new  task. 

In  April  he  landed  in  Holland.  The  next  month  was 
spent  in  reporting  to  the  deputies  and  explaining  the 
state  of  affairs  in  Pennsylvania.  In  June  he  appeared 
before  the  classis  of  Amsterdam  and  met  with  a  very 
favorable  reception.  His  request  for  an  official  vindi- 
cation of  his  course  in  Philadelphia  was  granted.  His 
description  of  the  destitution  of  the  Reformed  multi- 
tudes in  Pennsylvania  and  adjacent  States  did  not  fail 
to  make  the  impression  desired,  and  a  pious  publisher 
of  Amsterdam  offered  to  print  at  his  own  expense 
Schlatter's  journal,  in  which  all  his  observations  and 
experiences  made  in  America  during  the  three  years 
spent  there  had  been  recorded  with  great  care.  To- 
gether with  Schlatter's  journal,  an  introduction  to  the 
same,  and  an  appeal  by  classis  for  men  and  means  based 
upon  it  was  published  in  Dutch,  in  German,  and  in 
English,  all  at  the  same  publisher's  expense. 
6 


78  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

From  classis  Schlatter  turned  to  the  synods,  and  these 
responded  no  less  warmly.  Upon  their  representations 
the  civil  government  of  the  Netherlands  voted  a  sub- 
vention of  2,000  guilders,  or  florins, — about  $800  in  our 
money, — to  be  paid  at  once,  and  the  same  sum  yearly 
for  five  years.  Liberal  traveling  expenses  were  also 
appropriated  for  Schlatter's  journey  through  Germany 
and  Switzerland. 

The  mos't  important  and  promising  objective  point  of 
this  tour  was  Herborn,  at  that  time  the  most  flourish- 
ing Reformed  university  of  Germany.  From  there 
Schlatter  went  further  south  to  Frankfurt  A.  M., 
Heidelberg,  and  St.  Gall.  In  his  native  city  he  stayed 
several  weeks  and  his  reception  there  seems  to  prove 
that  the  circumstances  of  his  sin  committed  there  five 
years  previously,  admitted  of  a  lenient  construction. 
His  old  teacher,  Waegelin,  recommended  him  and  his 
-cause,  and  a  small  donation  was  contributed.  In  Heid- 
elberg and  in  Frankfurt  he  received  several  hundred 
dollars ;  in  other  places  smaller  gifts.  But  the  best  re- 
sult was  obtained  in  Herborn.  Here  five  candidates 
for  the  ministry  ofl:"ered  their  services  as  missionaries  in 
America,  all  well  recommended  by  their  superiors.  In 
March,  1752,  Schlatter  presented  them  to  the  classis  of 
Amsterdam.  They  were  subjected  to  a  careful  and 
even  rigorous  examination,  were  found  suitable  for  the 
work,  and  then  solemnly  ordained.  A  sixth  one  was 
added  in  the  next  month.  Their  names  were  Ph.  Wm. 
Otterbein,  J.  J.  Wissler,  Theo.  Frankenfeld,  Wm.  Stoy, 
John  Waldschmidt,  all  of  Herborn,  and  John  Ruebel, 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  79 

of  Wald,  Rhenish-Prussia,  who  had  absolved  his  theo- 
logical course  in  Marburg,  Hessia. 

The  classis  also  gave  Schlatter  a  letter  to  the  Phila- 
delphia congregation,  ordering  them  to  retain  him  as 
their  pastor,  and  a  letter  to  Steiner  ordering  him  to  re- 
turn eighty  dollars  given  him  by  the  deputies  for  trav- 
eling expenses. 

Toward  the  end  of  June,  1752,  after  an  absence  of 
eighteen  months,  Schlatter  landed  in  Philadelphia.  He 
returned  apparently  successful  and  victorious,  having 
obtained  liberal  ofi'erings  and  six  co-workers  and  of- 
ficial documents  in  vindication  of  himself.  But  how  de- 
ceptive appearances  are  sometimes !  Not  all  is  gold 
that  glitters.  In  many  an  apple  with  red  cheeks  a 
loathsome  worm  is  gnawing  at  its  heart's  core.  Would 
to  God  that  all  men  would  realize  that  a  contrite  spirit 
only  and  a  humbled  heart  find  favor  in  the  sight  of  men 
as  well  as  of  God.  Jesus  accepts  sinners,  it  is  true,  but 
only  the  penitent  ones.  And  men  do  not  even  accept 
the  penitent  sinner.  Most  men,  most  Christians  not  ex- 
cepted, even  if  they  forgive,  cannot  forget.  God  alone 
possesses  the  power  of  forgetting  what  he  sees  fit  to 
forget.  Jer.  xxxi :  34,  "I  will  forgive  their  iniquity, 
and  I  will  remember  their  sin  no  more." 

On  the  other  side,  sinners,  after  they  have  repented 
often  forget  the  lesson  of  humility.  It  is  reported  that 
Schlatter  did  so.  Two  of  the  missionaries  brought 
along  by  him,  Wissler  and  Ruebel,  immediately  upon 
setting  foot  on  American  soil,  parted  company  with 
Schlatter.     They  complained  greatly  of  his  imperious 


80  The  Pionetrs  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

manners  during  the  voyage,  and  Ruebel,  who  was 
aware  of  Schlatter's  youthful  immorality,  at  once  set 
to  work  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  Philadelphia 
congregation  and  to  complete  the  alienation  of  their 
feelings  from  Schlatter.  Just  as  three  years  before 
Steiner  had  been  taken  hold  of  by  Schlatter's  oppon- 
ents, they  now  received  Ruebel  with  open  arms,  lent 
their  ears  to  his  insinuations,  closed  their  pulpit  and 
church  against  Schlatter,  and  without  allowing  him  to 
present  his  documents  from  Holland,  elected  Ruebel  his 
successor.    He  never  again  preached  there. 

Two  more  of  his  intended  co-workers  failed  him  later 
on.  Stoy  proved  a  great  stirrer  up  of  strife,  and  after 
giving  his  brethren  untold  trouble,  turned  independent. 
Waldschmidt  grew  negligent  after  a  short  period  of 
usefulness,  and  ended  in  indifference. 

During  Schlatter's  absence  the  meeting  of  coetus  in 
175 1  had  been  attended  by  three  members  only,  who 
realizing  that  something  must  be  done  to  encourage  the 
others,  issued  a  circular  letter  telling  of  the  good  suc- 
cess in  Europe  and  holding  out  bright  prospects  of  help 
at  hand.  In  consequence,  when  coetus  met  again  in 
annual  session  after  Schlatter's  return,  the  attendance 
was  better.  Four  older  members  were  present  at  Lan- 
caster, October  18,  1752,  Weiss,  Schlatter,  Rieger,  and 
Leidich.  The  five  new  ones,  and  three,  whose  ordina- 
tion and  reinstation  had  been  submitted  to  the  deputies 
and  had  been  favorably  acted  upon,  Lischy,  Dubois, 
and  Tempelmann,  swelled  the  number  to  twelve. 

But  Schlatter  at  once  threw    the   apple   of   discord 


Weinheim,  the  birthplace  of  Tempelmann. 


Eppingen,  the  birth  place  of  Weiss. 
80 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  81 

among  them.  He  insisted  that  elders  should  have  no 
vote,  and  after  he  had  carried  his  point,  was  unani- 
mously elected  president.  But  Ruebel,  who  had  been 
delayed  on  his  journey,  after  the  election  made  his  ap- 
pearance with  his  two  elders  and  created  a  great  up- 
roar, loudly  protesting  against  Schlatter's  fitness  for  the 
presidency. 

His  protest  was  overruled,  but  he  did  not  stand 
alone,  and  so  strong  was  the  feeling  that  besides  him 
three  ministers,  led  by  Weiss,  with  their  elders  left  the 
meeting.  Nor  was  this  all.  Worse  things  were  to 
come.  The  next  year  saw  two  rival  coetus  in  session, 
of  equal  numerical  strength,  both  of  which  appealed  to 
the  deputies  for  recognition.  And  by  this  time  the  dep- 
uties lost  confidence  in  Schlatter.  For  some  time  they 
had  become  suspicious  of  his  character,  and  they  had 
written  to  St.  Gall  for  full  information.  In  response 
they  had  received  a  letter  from  Pastor  Wirtz,  in  Zurich, 
revealing  the  whole  story.  In  consequence,  Schlatter 
offered  his  resignation  to  the  deputies,  which  was  ac- 
cepted. On  his  next  trip  to  Holland  he  appeared  be- 
fore them  and  confessed  all.  The  official  minutes  of  his 
examination  on  this  occasion  as  well  as  Wirz's  letter 
are  preserved  in  the  archives  of  Amsterdam. 

'Hereupon  the  disunited  members  of  coetus  reunited; 
they  repealed  the  act  by  which  elders  had  been  pre- 
cluded from  voting,  and  held  good,  harmonious  meet- 
ings in  1754  and  1755.  But  Schlatter  never  afterwards 
attended  any  of  them. 


82  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Before  concluding  the  account  of  Schlatter's  life,  it 
seems  proper  to  finish  the  account  of  Weiss'  life  and 
labors.  Althoug-h  Ruebel  was  the  instigator  of  the 
strife,  his  character  did  not  command  sufficient  respect 
to  make  him  leader  of  the  opposition.  If  Weiss  had 
not  committed  himself  to  such  an  extent  as  to  head  the 
organization  of  a  coetus  free  from  Schlatter's  influence, 
things  might  have  taken  an  altogether  different  turn, 
for  behind  Schlatter  the  deputies  stood,  and  behind  the 
deputies  the  missionary  aid  and  appropriations,  and 
without  these  they  would  have  been  greatly  crippled 
by  poverty. 

Weiss  lived  nine  years  longer.  He  died  in  1761  in 
Goschenhoppen,  his  last  charge,  sixty-one  years  old. 
His  share  in  the  making  of  the  Pennsylvania  church 
was  somewhat  troublous.  First  he  opposed  Boehm  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  not  ordained.  After  Boehm's 
ordination  he  co-operated  with  him.  Then  he  went  to 
Holland  with  Reiff,  and  aroused  the  sympathies  of  the 
church  there  so  intensely  that  the  deputies  were  elected. 
When  sixteen  years  later  the  deputies  sent  Schlatter, 
he  stood  by  him  at  first,  but  gradually  withdrew  from 
him  and  finally  by  openly  opposing  him  may  be  said 
to  'have  saved  the  life  of  coetus. 

In  the  unsavory  Reiff  affair,  Weiss'  character  came 
out  without  blemish.  His  integrity  was  not  called  in 
question  by  any  one. 

As  a  matter  of  curiosity,  it  may  be  noted  here  that  he 
published  the  first  book,  or  rather  pamphlet,  ever 
written  by  a  German  Reformed  minister  in  America, 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  83 

"A  Refutation  of  the  New  Born."  The  New  Born  are 
here  represented  as  teaching  that  they  need  not  pray, 
'being  one  with  God  and  illumined  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
For  the  same  reason  they  need  neither  ministers,  nor 
public  service,  nor  sacrament. 

A  copy  of  the  pamphlet  is  preserved  in  the  National 
library  at  Washington.  The  contents  are  cast  in  the 
form  of  a  dialogue. 

Weiss  owned  a  family  of  slaves.  After  his  death 
they  were  given  their  liberty  by  his  widow,  who  also 
made  liberal  provision  for  them  by  legacy. 


Schlatter's  career  after  his  resignation  has  no  bear- 
ing on  the  church.  He  entirely  ignored  the  coetus  and 
the  coetus  entirely  ignored  him,  although  he  lived 
nearly  forty  years  longer. 

On  his  second  trip  to  Holland  he  became  identified 
with  a  charitable  work  of  great  promise,  which,  how- 
ever, ended  in  total  disappointment  and  caused  much 
ill  feeling.  The  King  of  England  and  the  heads  of 
the  church  there  had  been  told  that  the  numerous  Ger- 
man settlers  in  Pennsylvania  constituted  a  dangerous 
element.  At  that  time,  the  French  and  Indian  war, 
1755-1763,  was  about  to  break  out,  which  was  to  de- 
cide whether  North  America  was  to  be  all  English,  or 
half  French.  Suspicions  were  aroused  that  the  Ger- 
mans in  Pennsylvania,  through  ignorance  of  the  Eng- 
lish language,  might  side  with  the  French.  There  was 
not  the  slightest  cause  for  such  suspicion,  for 
the  Germans  and  the  French  are  hereditary  and  in- 


84 The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


veterate  enemies.  At  that  very  time  the  Germans  felt 
more  bitterly  than  ever  against  the  French,  because 
the  beautiful  regions  of  Rhineland,  where  the  bulk  of 
the  Germans  in  Pennsylvania  had  come  from,  were 
devastated  so  cruelly  and  wantonly. 

Moreover,  these  Germans  were  misrepresented  as 
totally  destitute  of  churches  and  pastors,  and  fast  re- 
lapsing into  savagery.  By  highly  colored  appeals  along 
these  lines  large  sums  of  money,  amounting  to  $20,000 
in  our  money,  were  raised,  and  just  at  that  juncture 
Schlatter  made  his  appearance.  Since  he  was  so  fa- 
miliar with  the  state  of  things  in  Pennsylvania  and 
had  so  much  experience  in  traveling  there,  he  seemed 
to  be  the  right  man  to  act  as  agent  of  the  new  charity, 
he  having  well  proved  his  activity  and  zeal.  So  it  came 
about,  in  February  1755,  that  he  was  appointed  super- 
visor of  charity  schools  in  Pennsylvania  to  be  estab- 
lished among  the  Germans  to  learn  English.  For  a 
short  time  the  work  went  on  finely ;  in  one  report  nine 
such  schools  are  enumerated,  with  600  boys  taught. 
But  when  the  Germans  learned  how  they  had  been 
misrepresented,  a  storm  of  indignation  arose  so  violent 
that  the  whole  scheme  collapsed. 

At  that  time  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania  had  what 
is  called  a  proprietary  government,  i.  e.,  the  governor 
was  appointed  by  the  proprietors,  the  Penns,  and  the 
people  had  no  voice  in  filling  the  office.  In  consequence, 
the  people  had  but  little  love  for  their  governors,  and 
since  the  governors  favored  the  new  charity  schools, 
the  people  felt  the  more  suspicious  of  them.   Schlatter, 


The  Deputies  and  Schlatter.  85 

however,  stood  well  with  the  governor,  and  when  the 
schools  failed,  was  given  another  appointment,  a  chap- 
laincy in  a  crack  regiment,  the  Royal  regiment  levied 
in  Pennsylvania,  which  formed  part  of  an  expedition 
sent  to  capture  Halifax  and  Louisburg  in  French 
Canada.  Schlatter  went  with  the  expedition,  but  re- 
turned home  in  1759,  the  year  after  the  surrender  of 
Louisburg. 

Ever  after,  for  thirty  years,  he  led  a  quiet  life  with 
his  family  on  a  small  farm  by  him  named  Sweetland, 
four  miles  from  Germantown  on  the  Reading  turnpike. 
The  place  at  present  is  called  Barren  Hill  and  Chestnut 
Hill,  and  is  dotted  all  over  with  beautiful  residences 
for  wealthy  Philadelphians. 

The  proceeds  of  the  farm  worked  by  his  boys,  and  his 
salary  from  an  independent  congregation  there  helped 
support  his  family,  but  his  main  income  was  derived 
from  marriage  fees.  He  still  retained  and  used  his  title 
of  Chaplain  in  the  Royal  Regiment,  and  continued  cul- 
tivating the  society  of  aristocratic  friends  that  gave  him 
a  high  social  standing.  This,  together  with  the  locality 
of  his  house,  well  suited  for  love  affairs  and  marriages, 
and  his  social  habits,  made  him  the  popular  dispenser  of 
marriage  bliss.  From  Dec.  23,  1768,  to  July  9,  1770,  he 
reported  64  marriages  and  received  $185  in  fees,  and 
this  was  by  no  means  an  extraordinary  season. 

This  idyllic  life  was  interrupted  but  once,  in  1777, 
when  after  the  fall  of  Philadelphia,  British  soldiers 
plundered  his  house  and  kept  him  imprisoned  for  a 
short  time. 


86  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

He  died  in  October,  1790,  aged  74  years. 

By  some  authors  Schlatter  has  been  represented  as  a 
saint  and  a  hero.  Men  love  to  worship  heroes,  and 
Christians  love  to  worship  saints.  But  history  must  be 
true  and  impartial.  Untrue  history  is  unscriptural,  for 
scripture  does  not  conceal  the  sins  of  its  holiest  men. 
It  is  a  dangerous  error  to  think  that  God  rules  his 
church  by  the  virtues  and  the  Vv^isdom  of  sinless  or 
comparatively  sinless  men.  He  rather  overrules  the 
follies  and  shortcomings  of  her  leaders.  For  the  Roman 
Catholic  church  it  may  be  the  necessary  thing  to  fill  her 
people  with  a  superstitious  awe  and  reverence  for  her 
leaders.  She  wants  a  strong  government  by  men  of 
might.  But  it  behooves  the  Reformed  church  rather  to 
magnify  God  and  to  recognize  His  consum'mate  wisdom 
in  the  mastery  with  which  He  accomplishes  the  great- 
est things  through  weak  and  ignoble  instrumentalities, 
even  as  human  mastery  in  art  is  evidenced  by  wonder- 
ful workmanship  done  with  tools  defective  and  seem- 
ingly unserviceable. 

Nor  would  it  seem  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God  to 
build  magnificent  tombs  for  prophets  stoned  by  their 
cotemporaries.  Schlatter's  cotemporaries  were  rather 
severe  on  his  faults,  but  his  indefatigable  zeal,  his  buoy- 
ant hopefulness,  and  his  unselfish  indifiference  to  the 
accumulation  of  wealth  might  still  have  served  the 
church  to  very  good  purpose,  if  men  could  have  for- 
given and — forgotten.  As  it  was,  this  much  is  true, 
that  Schlatter  worked  hard  and  died  poor,  and  that  his 
work  lives  on,  though  he  was  buried  before  he  died. 


Schlatter's  Home  on  Chestnut  Hill. 


86 


IV.     THE  REVIVALS. 

When  Schlatter  put  forth  his  last  grand  effort  to  re- 
cover his  ground,  and  succeeded  in  enhsting  six  addi- 
tional ministers  for  America,  he  could  not  divine  that 
one  of  them,  Otterbein,  the  best  of  them,  would  be  im- 
mortalized by  a  new  sect.  Nor  was  he,  probably,  aware 
thalt  at  that  time  a  new  star  had  appeared  in  the  Church 
of  England,  Wesley,  who  was  not  only  to  found  a  new 
sect,  but  to  herald  a  new  era  in  Christendom,  the  era 
of  an  active  membership,  active  in  spiritual  things.  The 
founder  of  Methodism  differed  from  the  Pietists  and 
the  Moravians  in  that  he  made  the  whole  world  his 
parish,  and  the  whole  parish  his  clergy.  Every  one  must 
seek  the  conversion  of  every  one  he  comes  in  contact 
with.  Not  that  he  had  more  religion  than  they,  but  that 
his  religion  was  cast  more  aggressive  than  theirs. 

Of  these  things  Schlatter  knew  nothing.  But  God 
knew.  And  God  looked  down  upon  the  German  Re- 
formed church  in  Pennsylvania  in  great  mercy,  to  make 
her  share  in  the  new  element  of  power.  In  the  first 
quarter  of  the  century  some  leaven  of  pietism  had  been 
mingled  with  her  meal ;  in  the  second,  Zinzendorf,  who 
had  been  brought  up  as  a  pietist,  brought  some  of  his 
peculiar  gifts  to  her  work;  in  the  third  the  deputies  en- 
riched her  life  with  the  tonic  of  matured  calvinistic  dis- 
cipline; and  in  the  fourth,  Wesley,  who  dated  his  con- 

87 


88     The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

version  from  a  Moravian  prayer-meeting,  contributed 
to  her  heavenly  treasure  gems  of  new  lustre. 

Ph.  Wm.  Otterhein  was  born  in  1726  in  Siegenland, 
the  same  that  gave  birth  to  Haegener,  pastor  of  the 
first  German  Reformed  congregation  ever  formed  in 
the  New  World.  His  father,  a  minister,  died  early,  but 
his  mother  was  one  of  those  quiet  women,  who  seem  so 
inert  and  who  develop  so  m.uch  reserved  power  when 
the  times  come  that  try  men's  souls  and  test  their  metal. 
She  was  a  poor  widow,  but  she  moved  to  Herborn  with 
her  six  sons,  and  there  gave  every  one  of  them  a  univer- 
sity education,  struggling  on  and  working  on  with  that 
heroism  of  self-denial,  of  persistence,  and  of  incessant 
prayer,  of  which  so  few  women  and  still  fewer  men 
seem  capable.  And  she  received  an  earnest  of  her 
reward  when  her  motherly  eye  saw  every  one  of  her 
six  sons  active  in  the  gospel  ministry,  and  every  one  of 
them  a  blessing  to  many  others. 

In  those  days  the  Pietists  inaugurated  the  modern 
work  of  foreign  missions,  which  has  since  grown  to 
such  wonderful  dimensions  that  16,000  missionaries, 
aided  by  many  more  native  helpers,  are  now  in  the  field 
of  glory.  It  was  in  1706  that  the  Pietist  university  of 
Halle  recommended  one  of  its  students,  Ziegenbalg,  to 
the  King  of  Denmark  for  missionary  work  in  the  Dan- 
ish colony  of  Tranquebar,  where  he  gathered  the 
Tamuls  into  Christian  churches,  the  first  foreign  mis- 
sionary of  Protestantism. 

Mother  Otterbein  became  greatly  interested  in  this 
new  departure  of  Christian  activity,  and  frequently  she 


The  Revivals.  89 


was  heard  to  say :  "My  William  will  have  to  be  a  mis- 
sionary, he  is  so  frank  and  so  open,  so  natural  and  so 
prophet-like."  Her  wish  was  fulfilled,  though  in  an  un- 
expected way,  in  1752,  when  Schlatter  came  to  Herborn 
with  the  appeal  and  the  recommendations  of  the  Hol- 
land deputies.  He  had  not  been  able  to  enlist  any  candi- 
dates in  Switzerland,  nor  in  Heidelberg  either.  But  in 
Herborn  he  found  ears  to  hear  and  eyes  to  see.  The  en- 
tire faculty  seconded  his  efforts,  and  six  young  brethren 
offered  their  services. 

There  is  found  in  the  Herborn  college- journal  a 
significant  entry  dated  February  25,  1752,  written  by 
Henry  Schramm,  professor  of  practical  theology,  as 
follows :  "Rev.  Mr.  Schlatter  handed  me  a  list  of  the 
candidates  he  desires  to  take  along  with  him  to  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  prays  that  we  give  them  a  general  academic 
testimonial.  Shall  they  have  such?"  To  which  John 
Eberhard  Rau,  professor  of  Oriental  languages,  makes 
answer :  "Yes ;  I  hope  that  there  is  none  who  would  not 
be  glad  to  see  ministers  desire  rather  to  work  in  for- 
eign lands  than  in  their  own  country."  Such  was  the 
missionary  spirit  of  the  professors  of  Herborn. 

Nor  was  Otterbein's  mother  less  willing.  Unhesitat- 
ingly she  gave  up  one  whom  she  had  borne  in  sorrow 
and  on  whom  she  had  lavished  her  love  through  years 
of  self-denial.  Taking  William  by  his  hand  and  press- 
ing it  to  her  bosom  throbbing  with  such  anguish  as  only 
a  mother  feels,  she  said :  "Go.  The  Lord  bless  thee  and 
keep  thee.  On  earth  I  may  not  see  thy  face  again. 
But  go."    He  never  forgot  her.  As  long  as  she  lived  he 


90  The  Pionrers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

each  year  sent  her  a  generous  portion  of  his  scanty 
salary,  fifty  guilders. 

Upon  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia  he  was  assigned  to 
one  of  the  most  important,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of 
the  most  unfortunate  charges,  the  child  of  many  sor- 
rows in  the  family.  The  city  of  Lancaster,  in  the  pres- 
ent timej  is  one  oi  the  centers  of  church  activity,  the 
seat  of  an  academy,  a  college,  and  a  theological  semi- 
nary, altogether  with  twenty  professors  and  five 
hundred  students.  In  four  beautiful  churches,  three 
English  and  one  German,  Reformed  pastors  serve  large 
and  influential  congregations.  But  Otterbein  found 
Lancaster  a  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  and  refus- 
ing to  be  comforted. 

The  church  building  had  been  erected  in  1736  under 
Pastor  Joh.  Jac.  Hock,  Who  left  after  a  pastorate  of 
but  sixteen  months  and  was  not  heard  of  afterwards. 
Then  Ricgcr  came,  who  received  Zinzendorf  and  was 
by  his  people  turned  out  of  the  pulpit  for  loving  him  too 
well,  but  not  wisely.  The  congregation  never  after 
could  be  persuaded  to  forgive  their  pastor  or  to  take 
him  back.  In  1745  a  certain  pastor,  Caspar  Louis 
Sclinorr,  commissioned  by  the  church  government  of 
Zweibruecken  in  the  Palatinate  to  go  to  Tulpehocken, 
became  pastor  of  the  Lancaster  congregation.  He  quar- 
reled long  and  bitterly  with  Rieger,  wdio  still  lingered 
in  Lancaster  and  longed  for  his  former  pulpit;  besides 
this,  Schnorr  was  a  drunkard,  and  his  scandalous  life 
brought  disgrace  upon  himself  and  his  people.  Then 
Lischy,  after  he  had  left  the  Moravians,  essayed  minis- 


The  Revivah.  9i 


tering  unto  them,  but  never  could  win  their  full  esteem 
and  confidence.  In  1748  young  Hochrcutiner  was  to 
serve  them,  but  lost  his  life  when  on  the  point  of  start- 
ing from  Philadelphia. 

Througli  all  these  troubles  the  congregation  retained 
a  very  large  memibership.  Schlatter  adminstered  the 
Lord's  Supper  to  250  persons,  but  for  three  years  could 
find  no  pastor  for  them,  during  w'hich  time  the  school- 
master conducted  the  services  and  read  sermons.  In 
1750  Schlatter  sent  Louis  Fred.  Vock,  but  he  proved 
unsuitable,  being  too  old,  and  leading  an  improper  life. 
After  a  very  short  pastorate  he  had  to  leave  again. 

Finally,  it  was  in  this  same  church  at  Lancaster  that 
the  disastrous  coetus  meeting  of  1752  was  held,  where 
four  ministers  left  and  formed  a  rival  coetus. 

In  these  circumstances,  akhoug'h  Otterbein  here 
found  an  abundance  of  what  is  called  material — ^toff, 
matter — he  could  hardly  expect  to  find  much  spirit.  But 
those  old  German  congregations  made  up  in  cohesive- 
ness  what  they  lacked  in  aggressiveness.  The  average 
German  Christian  harbors  more  of  faith  in  Christ  and 
love  to  Christ  than  he  is  apt  to  show.  In  spite  of  all  the 
misfortunes  that  had  befallen  the  Lancaster  flock,  the 
life  of  the  congregation  at  once  revived  under  Otter- 
bein's  preaching.  Large  and  attentive  audiences  crowd- 
ed the  building.  The  year  following,  a  larger  stone 
church  was  built. 

So  far,  so  good.  But  the  true  church,  the  Jerusalem 
gathered  by  Chris^Iimself  from  on  high,  is  built  of 


92  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

lively  stones.  And  it  pleased  God  to  bless  them  with  in- 
crease of  life  as  well  as  of  size. 

One  Sunday,  after  Otterbein  had  preached  an  incis- 
ive sermon  on  repentance  and  faith,  a  man  powerfully 
convicted  of  his  sinfulness  came  to  Otterbein's  house 
for  spiritual  advice.  That  was  a  new  experience  for  the 
young  minister.  True  enough,  he  was  not  devoid  of 
Christian  life;  almost  all  his  lifetime  he  had  breathed 
the  atmosphere  of  communion  with  Christ  and  His 
saints.  He  was  no  stranger  to  the  personal  knowledge 
of  sin  and  misery,  which  according  to  the  Heidelberg 
catechism  is  the  first  thing  necessary  to  salvation.  But 
he  lacked  that  power  of  the  Spirit,  which  enables 
Christ's  servants  properly  to  guide  souls  anxiously 
seeking  salvation.  He  did  not  know  what  to  say  in  pri- 
vate to  the  man  whose  soul  he  had  stirred  up  in  public. 
He  looked  upon  him,  and  with  deep  emotion  said : 
^etn  g-veunb,  ki  mir  i[t  Ijeute  guter  9tat  teuer.  "My 
friend,  good  advice  is  scarce  with  me  to-day." 

The  young  ruler  of  Luke  xviii:i8  lacked  one  thing, 
and  Christ  told  him  what  it  was.  He  must  consecrate 
himself  to  God's  service  all  in  all.  But  the  young  ruler 
was  not  ready  then  to  take  that  step.  Most  Christians 
when  challenged  by  Jesus  for  a  full  surrender  of  all, 
plead  for  more  time.  Unwisely  so.  The  more  con- 
venient season,  to-morrow,  moves  with  man  as  the 
moon  does  with  the  nocturnal  wanderer.  To-morrow  is 
never.  But  Otterbein  chose  the  part  of  wisdom.  Im- 
mediately, just  as  he  was,  he  repaired  to  his  study,  and 
there  unreservedly  consecrated  himself  to  his  Lord,  and 


The  Revivals.  93 


the  Lord  accepted  him — He  always  does — and  endowed 
him  with  power  from  above,  Acts  i  :8,  and  invested  him 
with  the  full  insignia  of  his  office,  David's  Key, 

Henceforth,  in  his  pastoral  work,  he  could  effectually 
reach  out  for  higher  things  than  the  external  upbuild- 
ing of  his  congregation,  and  could  lead  in  person  many 
of  his  members  to  the  personal  Christ.  To  his  great 
sorrow,  however,  he  saw  that  the  leading  men  and  the 
bulk  of  his  people  continued  in  comparative  indiffer- 
ence. The  fact  is,  that  generally  the  mind  of  the  con- 
gregation has  more  influence  than  the  pastor's  mind. 
The  conversation  of  the  membership,  their  every-day 
talk,  is  greater  in  force  as  well  as  in  volume  than  the 
pastor's  talk.  They  are  too  many  for  him  alone.  It  is 
only  when  his  words  are  seconded  by  the  leaders  of  the 
church  that  the  seed,  after  it  has  germinated  and  sprout- 
ed, receives  the  fostering  care,  the  watering,  and  the 
sheltering  needed  to  mature  the  tender  plant  to  the  full 
stature  of  Christ,  Eph.  iv:i3. 

Otterbein's  leading  men  in  Lancaster,  it  is  true,  did 
not  object  to  the  intensified  earnestness  of  the  member- 
ship awakened  by  the  pastor's  zeal ;  they  rather  ap- 
proved of  it,  since  it  filled  the  pews  and  the  exchecquer. 
But  they  did  what  was  worse.  They  remained  care- 
less and  indifferent  for  themselves,  nor  would  they  even 
yield  so  much  to  his  earnest  expostulations  as  to  ex- 
clude from  the  Lord's  table  members  leading  immoral 
lives.  They  could  not  be  made  to  see  that  for  this  very 
fact  many  were  sickly  and  many  slept.    L  Cor.  xi :  30, 

Accordingly,  Otterbein  prepared  to  leave  them.  When 
7 


94  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

accepting  their  call  he  had  engaged  himself  for  five 
years.  At  the  expiration  of  the  time  he  announced  his 
determination  to  seek  another  field  of  labor.  But  they 
were  very  loth  to  let  him  go,  and  remembering  his 
desire  to  have  unworthy  members  excluded  from  com- 
munion they  now  promised  to  yield  to  his  wishes  if  he 
would  consent  to  stay  with  them.  His  fellow  pastors 
in  coetus-meeting  joined  their  entreaties  to  those  of 
the  congregation.  Under  such  pressure  Otterbein  could 
not  well  refuse.  But  he  would  stay  no  longer  than  one 
year,  and  at  the  end  of  his  sixth  year  of  service  he 
resigned  unconditionally. 

During  his  pastorate,  among  other  good  things,  the 
custom  was  introduced  that  before  each  communion  the 
pastor  had  a  personal  interview  with  each  communicant 
on  the  condition  of  his  faith-life,  a  custom  borrowed 
from  the  Reformed  churches  in  the  lower  Rhine  region. 
The  Lancaster  people  kept  it  up  for  three  quarters  of 
a  century. 

From  Lancaster  Otterbein  went  to  a  quiet  country 
charge,  Tulpehocken,  where  he  rested  from  the  great 
strain  to  which  his  mind  had  been  put,  but  did  by  no 
means  abstain  from  work,  for  how  could  the  Christ  in 
man's  heart  be  idle?  Love  never  is.  He  here  made 
good  progress  in  learning  how  to  do  personal  work. 

In  1760  he  accepted  a  call  to  Frederick,  Md.,  where 
he  was  able  from  the  start  to  present  the  gospel  in  that 
incisive  form  in  which  John  saw  it  proceed  from 
Christ's  mouth,  like  a  two-edged  sword,  and  in  which 
the  author  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  describes  it, 


The  Revivals.  95 


chap,  iv :  12,  "piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder 
of  soul  and  spirit."  Preaching  of  that  sort  is  the  kind 
that  calls  forth  active  opposition,  and  active  opposition 
is  far  less  to  be  feared  than  a  stolid,  passive  indiffer- 
ence. 

When,  one  Sunday  morning,  one  of  the  leading  men 
locked  the  church  door  against  Otterbein  and  could 
not  be  prevailed  upon  to  open  it  for  the  large  audience 
that  had  gathered,  Otterbein,  like  the  war-horse  scent- 
ing the  battle  from  afar,  put  on  his  whole  gospel-armor 
and,  standing  on  a  large  tombstone  in  the  churchyard, 
joyfully  preached  such  a  sermon  that  the  key  had  to 
come  forth  from  his  opponent's  pocket,  and  the  same 
hands  that  had  locked  the  door  felt  constrained  to 
unlock  it  again.  Evidently  the  key  of  David,  Rev.  iii : 
7,  was  not  in  the  enemy's  hand,  but  in  that  of  the  fear- 
less preacher. 

A  new  stone  church  was  built  here  under  Otterbein's 
ministrations,  just  as  it  had  been  done  in  Lancaster,  but 
more  than  that  was  built,  the  temple  of  lively  stones, 
!Oebenbige  ©teine.  I.  Pet.  ii:  5,  a  fellowship  of  true  be- 
lievers, among  whom  there  never  were  wanting  men 
able  to  conduct  meetings  when  their  pastor  was  absent, 
men  who  held  prayer-meetings  for  many  years  after 
Otterbein  had  left  and  a  successor  had  been  elected 
that  did  not  favor  them. 

In  a  report  of  the  coetus,  Otterbein  is  represented  as 
"having  worked  himself  nearly  to  death  in  Frederick," 
and  no  wonder,  for,  not  content  with  work  in  his  own 


96  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


charg-e,  he  preached  all  over  Maryland  and  far  into 
Virginia. 

After  five  years  of  hard  work  here,  he  went  to  York, 
Pa.,  choosing  this  call  from  a  large  number  of  others 
received.  While  there,  he  made  his  long  intended  trip 
to  Europe,  once  more  to  visit  the  home  of  his  youth, 
after  an  absence  of  eighteen  years.  To  his  great  joy 
he  found  his  aged  mother  still  living,  and  so  were  his 
five  brothers,  now  all  active  pastors  in  the  Reformed 
church.  His  brother,  George  Godfrey,  pastor  in  Duis- 
burg,  was  a  standard  bearer  of  the  faithful  in  their 
battle  with  the  powerful  current  of  Rationalism  at  that 
time  in  the  flush  of  popularity.  When  William  told 
him  of  his  personal  experience  in  Lancaster,  he  listened 
with  deep  interest,  and  no  sooner  was  the  testimony 
finished  than  he  arose  from  his  chair,  embraced  his 
American  brother,  and,  with  tears  flowing,  said,  "My 
dear  brother  William,  now  we  are  more  than  brothers 
in  the  flesh,  we  are  one  in  the  spirit;  blessed  be  the 
name  of  the  Lord  !" 

Returned  to  America  he  found  a  number  of  calls 
awaiting  him.  His  York  people  would  have  been  but 
too  glad  to  retain  him,  just  as  those  in  Frederick,  Tul- 
pehocken,  and  Lancaster  were,  for  as  Stahlschmidt 
writes :  "He  is  a  very  gentle  and  kind  man,  and  re- 
spected everywhere  because  of  his  pious  and  godly 
manners."  But  for  that  very  reason  scarcely  a  year 
passed  by  without  his  receiving  invitations  and  calls 
from  other  places.  Church  people  may  not  always  be 
willing  to  accept  for  themselves  the  glorious  joy  and 


The  Revivals.  97 


the  sweet  peace  in  store  for  all  who  surrender  entirely 
to  their  most  g^racious  Lord,  but  they  always  recognize 
the  blessing  bestowed  on  such  men,  whenever  in  their 
daily  walk  they  meet  them,  and  feel  attracted  by  them. 
Finally  Baltimore  succeeded  in  securing  him. 
Of  the  origin  and  the  early  history  of  the  Reformed 
church  in  Baltimore  but  little  is  known.  Probably  it 
is  of  more  recent  date  than  that  of  Philadelphia,  the 
tide  of  immigration  into  Maryland  having  set  in  con- 
siderably later.  The  first  mention  made  of  a  congre- 
gation in  Baltimore  is  that  in  1765  it  is  reported  va- 
cant. In  1768  John  Christopher  Faber  was  called  by 
it,  an  orthodox  minister  with  a  thorough  university 
training  obtained  at  Heidelberg;  but  he  had  been  re- 
jected by  the  Deputies  when  he  applied  for  their  as- 
sistance and  recommendation.  He  then  came  over  on 
his  own  responsibility  and  found  an  open  door  in  Bal- 
timore. But  he  proved  cold  and  tedious  in  the  pulpit, 
and  his  conversation  under  the  pulpit  was  devoid  of 
the  salt — entertaining  rather  than  elevating.  For  ihat 
reason,  a  number  of  the  members,  under  the  leadership 
of  Pastor  Benedict  Schwob,  had  left  his  church  and 
had  formed  a  new  organization.  This  Schwob  had 
been  an  elder  in  a  neighboring  country  church,  of  good 
moral  character,  with  the  love  of  Christ  in  his  heart, 
and  coetus  had  ordained  him,  since  he  proved  suffi- 
ciently well  educated.*     Under  Schwob  the  new  con- 


*His  ordination  was,  later  on,  acquiesced  in  by  the  Deputies, 
because  they  considered  their  authority  confined  to  the  limits 
of  Pennsylvania. 


98  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

greg-ation  built  a  chapel  and  seemed  prosperous,  but 
there  was  constant  friction  and  bad  feeling  between 
the  old  and  the  new  congregation.  Upon  their  ap- 
pealing to  coetus  they  were  advised  both  to  dismiss 
their  pastors,  which  they  did,  without,  however,  ef- 
fecting a  reunion.  Several  pastors  were  recommend- 
ed to  them,  but  none  of  them  would  accept  a  field  so 
full  of  difficulties.  Finally  Schwob  recommended 
Otterbein,  and  he  accepted,  much  to  the  surprise  of 
his  brother  ministers.  They  mostly  favored  the  older 
congregation;  the  Deputies  also  sided  with  them.  The 
membership  of  the  new  one  was  small,  and  it  did  seem 
strange  that  he  should  leave  after  a  short  pastorate  of 
three  years  only  the  large  and  peaceful  flock  at  York, 
where  he  enjoyed  the  love  and  confidence  of  all,  for 
what  might  be  called  a  crown  of  thorns.  But,  like  all 
the  charges  so  far  served  by  him,  the  York  congrega- 
tion was  by  no  means  a  unit  in  Christian  sentiment; 
and  by  this  time  he  had  learned  by  much  and  varied 
experience  that  a  house  divided  against  itself,  Matth. 
xii  :25,  does  not  form  a  good  base  of  operations  in 
Christian  warfare.  In  general,  congregations  retain 
the  character  of  their  founders.  First  impressions  are 
lasting  impressions.  Now  at  last  an  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself  to  work  in  a  congregation  avowedly 
formed  under  the  standard  of  the  Christ  with  the 
promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  all  believers,  in  oppo- 
sition to  a  Gospel  without  His  power.  To  him  this 
seemed  his  golden  opportunity,  the  turning  tide  in  his 
affairs  that  comes  but  once  in  human  life.     He  seized 


The  Revivals.  99 


it,  and  he  chose  well.  More  than  forty  years  he  was 
permitted  to  spend  here  in  labor  owned  by  Christ  and 
richly  blessed  by  God. 

This  change  of  field  was  made  in  1774.  But  in 
order  to  fully  understand  the  nature  of  Otterbein's 
labors  in  Baltimore,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  back  to 
what  had  happened  years  before.  In  1744  one  of  the 
great  lights  in  the  European  churches  came  to  Amer- 
ica, George  Whiteiield,  on  a  similar  errand,  and  by  a 
similar  providence  to  that  of  Zinzendorf  in  1741.  By 
a  significant  coincidence  he  came  in  the  very  same  year 
that  an  American  revivalist  of  different  stamp,  Jona- 
than Edzvards,  broke  with  the  "half-way  covenant." 
Whitefield  created  a  widespread  sensation.  His  audi- 
ences were  numbered  by  thousands  and  by  myriads. 
His  impassionate  words  stirred  up  the  sober  minds  of 
the  eastern  colonist  as  well  as  of  the  less  educated  pio- 
neer of  the  west.  Never  before  had  America  witnessed 
such  a  tumult  of  holy  emotions.  And  as  often  as  he 
repeated  his  visits,  and  as  far  as  he  extended  them  all 
over  the  colonies,  invariably  the  same  results  would 
follow:  immense  crowds,  frequent  conversions  of 
hardened  sinners,  and  jubilant  rejoicings  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit. 

The  Reformed  church  never  has  been  of  the  Chi- 
nese-wall-celestial-empire kind.  Her  heart  always 
beat  in  sympathy  with  the  pulsations  of  Christ-life 
everywhere.  It  had  warmed  when  Zinzendorf  came; 
it  warmed  again  when  Whitfield  came,  and  twenty 
years  before  Otterbein  went  to  Baltimore,  many  Re- 


100  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 


formed  congreg-ations  in  southern  Pennsylvania  and  in 
Maryland  had  come  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  revival- 
ists' fervent  eloquence. 

About  fourteen  years  before,  in  1760,  it  came  to  pass 
that  a  Mennonite  preacher  plowed  his  field  not  far 
from  Lancaster.  Mennonite  ministers  have  to  handle 
the  plow,  since  they  receive  no  salaries.  But  this  one, 
Martin  Boehm,  was  only  half  a  minister.  He  had 
been  elected  preacher,  and  had  essayed  to  preach,  but 
again  and  again  he  had  failed.  He  might  have  talked, 
but  being  an  earnest  and  sincere  man  he  could  not 
thrash  empty  straw,  and  to  do  justice  to  the  Gospel  of 
infinite  grace,  words  failed  him.  And  now,  whilst 
plowing,  he  came  to  feel  his  failure  so  keenly  that  he 
fell  on  his  knees  in  a  plow-furrow,  and  in  answer  to 
his  supplications,  thought  he  heard  a  voice  in  his  heart 
crying:  „5>erIoren,  iiertoren!"  "Lost,  lost!"  "Then 
let  me  go  on  with  my  farm-work,"  he  said  to  himself, 
and  again  he  put  his  hand  to  the  plow.  But  the  voice 
seemed  to  follow  him  through  every  round,  and  at 
length,  unable  to  contain  himself  any  longer,  he  knelt 
down  in  the  middle  of  his  field,  crying:  "Lord,  save 
me,  I  perish !"  Then  came  to  his  thoughts  another 
voice,  saying:  "I  am  come  to  seek  and  save  that  which 
is  lost."  And  immediately  there  was  in  his  heart  the 
unspeakable  joy  of  salvation. 

Now  he  was  able  to  preach  to  purpose.  His  small 
meeting-house  could  not  hold  his  audiences,  and  after 
the  custom  of  those  days,  a         Qvofje     3>erjammtung, 


The  Revivals.  101 


a  large  meeting,  was  called  in  Isaac  Long's  barn,  near 
Lancaster.  Here  some  Lutherans  and  Reformed  at- 
tended, and  Otterbein  also  was  present,  who  at  that 
time  was  serving  the  Tulpehocken  charge,  his  soul  yet 
aglow  with  the  first  love  of  a  fully  consecrated  life. 
Hearing  Boehm's  stirring  words,  he  could  not  control 
his  emotions,  but  rushed  forward  and,  unmindful  of 
clerical  dignity,  folded  the  plainly  attired  preacher  in 
his  arms,  exclaiming  with  a  loud  voice,  "We  are  breth- 
ren." 

After  that,  many  similar  meetings  were  held  where 
the  two  worked  together,  and  a  close  friendship  sprung 
up  between  them. 

In  Baltimore  another  prominent  revivalist  entered 
into  intimate  friendship  with  Otterbein,  Francis  As- 
bury,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Methodist  Church  in 
America — a  friendship  maintained  unbroken  until  Ot- 
terbein's  death.  Such  was  Asbury's  intimacy  with 
Otterbein  that,  when  Asbury  was  to  be  ordained  to  the 
office  of  bishop,  Otterbein  was  asked  to  assist.  He 
did  not,  however,  comply.  Probably  he  had  become 
aware  of  the  distrust  likely  to  be  produced  in  the  minds 
of  his  people  by  so  pronounced  an  intercourse  with 
the  leader  of  another  denomination. 

The  same  consideration  seems  to  have  guided  him 
in  holding  the  so-called  Antietam  meetings.  He  knew 
how  to  appreciate  the  blessings  derived  from  mass- 
meetings,  where  earnest  Christians  coming  from  dif- 
ferent congregations  may  exchange  their  thoughts,  to 


102  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

receive  new  impulses  of  love  and  to  be  inspired  with 
increased  faith.  But  he  had  also  learned  to  fear  the 
dangers  connected  with  interdenominational  meetings. 
Churches  then  were  not  ripe  for  them.  Many  will 
never  be  ripe  for  them  before  the  advent  of  Christ. 
Otterbein  now  preferred  to  have  gatherings  controlled 
by  persons  of  his  own  church. 

The  first  were  held  at  Antietam,  the  celebrated  bat- 
tleground of  a  later  time.  The  first  one  of  which 
records  •  have  been  preserved  met  at  Pipe  creek,  and 
was  attended  by  members  from  Baltimore,  Frederick, 
Antietam,  and  other  places.  At  the  next  meeting,  held 
in  October  of  the  same  year,  six  Reformed  ministers 
were  present.  In  June  of  the  next  year  another  was 
held  in  Frederick,  with  300  persons  present ;  next  they 
met  in  Baltimore,  in  October.  Subsequently  a  few 
more  meetings  were  held,  but  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence, with  its  troubles,  put  an  end  to  them. 

In  themselves  such  mass  meetings  were  not  entirely 
new  in  the  Reformed  church.  Similar  ones  had  been 
held  in  the  Lower  Rhine  region,  but  a  new  feature 
made  its  appearance  in  the  Antietam  meetings — the 
appointment  of  class-leaders  for  the  spiritually  minded 
in  each  congregation  represented.  The  name  of  class- 
leaders  was  borrowed  from  the  Methodists  and  indi- 
cates that  these  men  were  to  hold  class-meetings,  the 
main  feature  of  which  is  that  those  present  tell  of 
their  own  spiritual  condition,  and  that  is  something 
foreign  to  Reformed  usage.  The  Reformed  always 
have  had  prayer-meetings.    Voetkis,  who  died  in  1676, 


The  Revivals.  103 


professor  in  Utrecht,  a  champion  of  orthodoxy,  was 
a  warm  advocate  of  the  "Collegia  Pietatis,"  week-day- 
meetings  for  prayer  and  Bible  study.  But  as  to  a  reg- 
ular weekly  account  given  of  each  participant's  inner 
life,  that  would  not  seem  in  accordance  with  the  proper 
distrust  in  man's  knowledge  of  self  and  of  God's 
secrets,  Deut.  xxix,  29  *  There  is  also  much  of  mystery 
in  the  New  Testament.  As  we  believe  in  the  mysterious 
presence  of  the  Lord  in  the  communion-service  of  be- 
lievers, so  we  desire  to  continue  in  "Holding  the  mys- 
tery of  the  faith,"  I.  Tim.  iii :  9.  And  mysteries  must 
not  be  and  cannot  be  made  the  subject  of  testimony  in 
meeting.     They  are  between  God  and  the  individual. 

The  United  Brethren  in  Christ — ^which  organization 
grew  out  of  the  Big  Meetings,  not  the  Antietam  meet- 
ings, claim  Otterbein  as  their  founder.  But  he,  as 
well  as  the  other  five  Reformed  pastors  interested  in 
the  Antietam  meetings,  never  left  their  church.  The 
next  active  after  Otterbein,  John  Wm.  Hendel,  pastor 
in  Philadelphia,  and  honored  by  Princeton  College 
with  the  title  of  D.  D.,  prepared  a  large  number  of 
young  men  for  the  Reformed  ministry.  All  of  them 
held  prayer-meetings  that  were  meetings  of  prayer, 
and  all  of  them  practiced  church  discipline  that  pun- 
ished. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  Otterbein's  atti- 
tude toward  the  church  is  not  quite  as  clear  as  that  of 
those  five.    Some  of  the  facts  in  his  later  life  are  hard 


♦The  secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God. 


104  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

to  harmonize.  The  new  church  organization  was  per- 
fected September  25,  1800,  with  the  election  of  Otter- 
fcein  as  bishop  and  Martin  Boehm  as  his  associate. 
And  yet,  six  years  later,  1806,  Otterbein  attended  the 
meeting  of  coetus.  At  this  meeting  the  rationalistic 
element  came  to  the  front,  grown  powerful  partly 
through  the  incoming  of  rationalistically  trained  min- 
isters from  Germany,  partly  through  the  general  deca- 
dence of  religion  following  in  the  train  of  the  revolu- 
tionary war.  War  is  hell,  not  only  by  fostering  vice  in 
camp-life,  but  also  by  giving  patriotism  the  precedence 
over  loyalty  to  Christ  and  his  church,  and  overshadow- 
ing the  glory  of  true  Christian  heroism  in  the  humbler 
walks  with  the  fascinating  glamor  of  military  heroism. 

At  the  coetus  (now  synod)  meeting  of  1806,  Pastor 
Becker,  a  student  of  Halle,  where  rationalism  by  that 
time  had  succeeded  pietism,  made  so  fierce  an  attack 
en  Otterbein  that  Otterbein  abruptly  left,  and  never 
came  again.  It  is  reported,  however,  that  Rev.  Isaac 
Geriiart  paid  him  a  visit  in  1812,  and  was  told  by  him 
explicitly  that  he  considered  himself  a  member  of  the 
German  Reformed  synod,  only  that  from  old  age  he 
could  no  longer  attend  to  meetings. 

Perhaps  he  considered  the  United  Brethren  in  Christ 
an  interdenominational  society  like  the  Tract  Society 
or  the  Bible  Society,  membership  in  which  would  by 
no  means  conflict  with  church-membership. 

When  Otterbein  died  in  1813,  aged  87  years,  he  was 
trustee  of  the  church  property,  and  willed  it  to  the  Re- 
formed church.     But  his  will  was  set  aside,  and  the 


The  Revivals.  105 


large  congregation  with  the  church  on  Conway  street 
built  by  him,  passed  over  into  the  hands  of  the  United 
Brethren. 

If  the  Reformed  church  failed  to  obtain  the  full 
benefit  of  his  abundant  labors,  a  two-fold  lesson  drawn 
from  that  fact  suggests  itself.  To  be  cautious  in 
colabor  with  men  of  other  denominations  and  in  mak- 
ing use  of  extraordinary  meetings  and  measures,  on 
the  one  hand;  and  on  the  other  hand,  to  be  cautious 
in  opposing  good  men  in  the  church  when  burning 
with  pious  zeal  they  use  means  and  methods  different 
from  the  customary  church-work. 

ALBERT    CONRAD    HELFFENSTEIN. 

Another  leading  revivalist  of  the  Reformed  church 
of  those  days  was  Albert  Conrad  Helifenstein,  a  man 
of  old  Reformed  stock,  whose  descendants,  however, 
like  Otterbein's  congregation,  have  passed  into  another 
church. 

His  great-grandfather,  in  the  thirty  years'  war,  nar- 
rowly escaped  from  the  Catholics  seeking  to  kill  him 
for  his  loyalty  to  his  Reformed  church.  His  father,  a 
prominent  minister  of  the  Palatinate,  longed  to  go  to 
America,  to  escape  from  the  worldliness  and  rational- 
ism then  prevailing  among  his  fellow  ministers,  but 
never  could  carry  out  his  purpose.  However,  he  en- 
couraged his  two  sons  to  go.  One  was  Albert  Conrad 
and  the  other  John  Henry  Helffrich  (half  brother, 
whose  descendants  have  in  unbroken  succession  served 
part  of  one  and  the  same  charge,  near  Allentown,  Pa). 


106  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

After  the  completion  of  Albert's  studies  in  Heidelberg 
the  two  brothers  applied  through  their  father  to  the 
Deputies,  and  were  by  them  sent  to  Pennsylvania. 

They  had  a  long  and  stormy  passage,  from  Septem- 
ber 6,  1771,  to  January  14,  1772,  suffering  greatly  from 
sickness,  hunger,  and  thirst,  frequently  in  peril  of  life. 
In  those  times  passengers  had  to  furnish  their  own 
provisions,  and  the  two  brothers  had  been  too  poor  to 
lay  in  a  supply  sufficient  for  four  months.  But  God 
turned  their  misery  into  a  great  blessing. 

Once  an  immense  wave  nearly  washed  Albert  Helf- 
fenstein  overboard.  It  was  on  January  7,  1772,  a  date 
never  after  forgotten  by  him,  a  true  red-letter  day, 
for  then  and  there  in  the  anguish  of  his  soul  he  gave 
his  whole  heart  to  the  King,  whose  garments  are  red 
with  blood  "from  the  wrath  of  God."  Is.  Ixiii :  i.  God 
stilled  the  storm.  After  that,  their  voyage  proceeded 
prosperously.  Seven  days  later  he  landed  safely  in 
New  York. 

His  first  charge  was  Germantown.  Four  years  later 
he  was  called  to  Lancaster.  Here  he  continued  the 
work  of  bringing  souls  to  decide  for  Christ,  as  Otter- 
bein  had  done  fourteen  years  before,  and  after  him 
Hendel  from  1765-68.  But  the  Germantown  people 
were  so  warmly  attached  to  Helflfenstein  that  after 
three  years  they  succeeded  in  again  securing  his  ser- 
vices, and  keeping  him  to  the  end  of  his  life,  ten  years 
later. 

He  was  one  of  the  most  impressive  preachers.  On 
one  occasion  he  mounted  his  pulpit,  closed  his  eyes, 


The  Revivals.  107 


bowed  his  head,  folded  his  hands,  and  exclaimed: 
"Lord,  save  me  or  I  perish."  Some  of  his  hearers  took 
alarm,  supposing  him  in  physical  distress,  but  he  had 
in  mind  Peter  sinking  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  when  at- 
tempting to  walk  on  the  water  with  Jesus.  In  a  few 
seconds  he  opened  his  eyes  and  proceeded,  "Thus  it 
was  that  Peter  cried  when  he  saw  himself  in  danger 
of  sinking." 

After  this  first  introduction  he  offered  prayer,  ac- 
cording to  his  habit,  and  then  the  second  introduction 
followed,  based  on  another  text,  and  then  the  sermon 
on  the  Sunday's  text.  Of  course,  singing  by  the  con- 
gregation came  in  between. 

During  his  pastorate  at  Lancaster,  a  large  number 
of  Hessian  prisoners  of  war  were  kept  there.  To  them 
he  once  preached  on  Is.  Hi  :2,  "For  thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Ye  have  sold  yourselves  for  nought,  and  shall  be  re- 
deemed without  money."  His  hearers  felt  the  sting 
and  the  shame  of  their  mercenary  soldiership  more 
strongly  than  the  healing  balsam  of  promise  contained 
in  the  text,  and  greatly  resented  the  preacher's  plain- 
ness of  speech. 

On  a  later  occasion,  after  a  sermon  on  the  text,  "If 
the  son  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed,"  John 
viii :  36,  the  excitement  of  the  prisoners  rose  to  so  high 
a  pitch  that  he  had  to  be  sent  home  under  a  safeguard. 

There  are  those  who  want  ministers  to  say  peace, 
peace  only  and  never  to  unsheath  the  two-edged  sword, 
and  under  such  preaching  they  are  very  apt  to  fall 
asleep.     But  there  was  not  much  sleeping  done  under 


108  The  Pionetrs  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Helffenstein's  preaching,  and  often  great  awakenings 
followed.  He  was  no  dim  tallow  candle,  but  a  burning 
and  a  shining  light,  highly  tempered  steel  burning  in 
pure  oxygen  with  unearthly  brightness  but  rapidly  con- 
suming itself  and  soon  dying  of  its  own  intensiveness. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  42  years  only,  when  his  church 
was  in  the  midst  of  a  revival. 


A  third  one  of  those  revivalists  may  close  their  rec- 
ord here, 

JOS.    CHRISTIAN   STAHLSCHMIDT. 

He  was  born  in  1740  in  the  Siegenland,  the  home  of 
Otterbein  and  Haegener.  There  he  had  attended 
prayer  meetings  of  awakened  men,  but  had  been  forced 
by  his  father  to  forsake  them.  Unable  to  bear  life  at 
home  under  such  conditions,  he  went  to  sea  and  spent 
ten  years  before  the  mast,  among  rude  scoffers.  But 
he  kept  close  to  Christ,  and  whenever  on  furlough, 
sought  the  fellowship  of  disciples.  Twice  during  this 
time  he  visited  his  dear  Tersteegen  in  Muelheim. 

In  1770  he  came  to  Philadelphia,  where  Dr.  Wey- 
berg,  one  of  Otterbein's  friends,  was  serving  the  Re- 
formed congregation.  Both  Weyberg  and  Otterbein 
encouraged  him  to  study  for  the  ministry,  and  under 
Hendel's  supervision  he  did  so,  privately.  The  Ger- 
mantown  congregation  gave  him  a  call,  and  Otterbein, 
Hendel,  and  Helffenstein  urged  its  acceptance  upon 
him,  but  he  felt  diffident  and  it  was  only  seven  years 
later  that  he  accepted  a  call  to  a  country  charge  near 
York. 


The  Revivals.  109 


People  here  were  divided  on  the  question  of  loyalty 
to  King  or  Congress.  Stahlschmidt  believed  on  the 
ground  of  Rom.  xiii:  1-2,  that  one  should  be  subject 
to  the  de  facto  government,  but  the  royalists  among  his 
members,  for  that  reason,  looked  upon  him  as  a  rebel. 
In  consequence,  after  a  short  pastorate  of  two  years 
only,  Stahlschmidt  returned  to  his  old  home,  where  he 
spent  the  remaining  thirty-seven  years  of  his  life  as  a 
leader  of  prayer-meetings,  and  as  a  champion  of  Bible- 
Christianity  against  the  rationalism  then  prevailing. 


V.  INDEPENDENCE. 

When  the  first  century  of  the  Reformed  church's 
life  in  America  neared  its  end,  the  pohtical  independ- 
ence of  the  colonies  had  been  fully  established,  and  the 
loose  confederacy  of  states  had  developed  into  a  firm 
union.  As  a  necessary  consequence,  the  American 
church  could  no  lono^er  remain  a  dependency  of  a  Eu- 
ropean church;  she  must  begin  to  be  responsible  to 
Christ  directly  for  all  she  did.  The  time  had  come  for 
the  deputies  to  leave  their  American  foster-children  to 
act  for  themselves,  as  a  wise  father,  in  due  time,  dis- 
misses his  adult  som  from  tutelage  and  guardianship. 

After  Schlatter's  dismissal,  they  had  continued  forty 
years  longer  to  send  ministers  and  moneys,  and  to 
exercise  a  careful  supervision  over  the  actions  of  the 
Coetus.  But  the  time  came  when  the  services  of  min- 
isters trained  in  the  ways  of  Europe  were  no  longer 
acceptable  to  the  American-born  descendants  of  Ger- 
man immigrants.  Not  on  the  ground  of  language 
mainly;  it  was  not  only  that  the  broad  brogue  of  some 
Swiss  newcomers  was  complained  of  as  distasteful  and 
unintelligible ;  nor  was  it  the  uncontrolled  temper  of 
others  only  that  repelled  American-bred  people  trained 
to  habits  of  self-government  and  self-command;  it 
was  not  only  that  most  Europeans  had  never  learned 
and  some  never  could  learn  the  rules  of  calm  parlia- 

110 


Independence.  Ill 


mentary  discussion,  nor  how  to  meet  their  fellow-men 
on  terms  of  equality,  and  their  opponents  in  the  spirit 
of  tolerance — the  whole  bearing  and  personality  of 
European  men  proved  more  or  less  uncongenial  to  the 
American  church.  The  last  minister  sent,  in  1788,  D. 
C.  Pick,  was  not  accepted  by  Coetus. 

Moreover,  in  the  matter  of  ordinations,  vexatious 
delay  and  sometimes  serious  losses  were  caused  when 
the  Deputies  insisted  upon  being  consulted  before 
Coetus  could  ordain  licentiates.  In  the  administration 
of  church  discipline  also  all  suspensions  from  the  min- 
istry as  well  as  all  reinstatements  had  to  be  sanctioned 
in  Holland  before  they  could  become  valid  in  America. 
Sometimes  Coetus  was  reprimanded  quite  severely  for 
rash  action  in  such  cases.  Still  more  sharply  the  Amer- 
icans were  called  to  order  when  they  began  to  speak 
of  establishing  an  institution  of  learning.  The  estab- 
lishment of  Franklin  College  in  Lancaster*,  although 
not  controlled  by  the  Reformed  Church,  was  made 
the  occasion  for  some  pointed  questions. 

These  checks  and  frictions  began  to  gall  the  Ameri- 
cans. The  spirit  of  independence  was  up  in  the  land, 
and  freedom  was  in  the  air.  In  New  York  the 
Dutch  dominies  had  cut  loose  from  their  mother 
church.  The  Pennsylvania  Germans  had  been  weaned 
from  the  counsels  of  the  Deputies  by  those  interrup- 


*Fifty  ycrirs  later  this  Franklin  College  was  merged  into  the 
Marshall  College  of  Mercersburg  moved  to  Lancaster,  and 
the  united  institution  placed  under  control  of  the  church. 


112  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

tions  of  commerce  and  correspondence  that  were 
unavoidable  in  a  war  waged  with  the  ruler  of  the  ocean. 
In  Holland,  on  the  other  side,  the  interest  in  the 
needs  of  Pennsylvania  began  to  wane,  the  collections 
dwindled  down,  and  the  transmissions  of  new  minis- 
ters grew  few  and  far  between.  Nor  was  there  any- 
longer  a  pressing  demand  for  them,  since  the  Ameri- 
can pastors  were  now  training  candidates  for  the  min- 
istry sufficient  to  meet  the  demand. 

Financial  conditions  also  had  undergone  a  great 
change.  American  pastors  no  longer  stood  in  need  of 
missionary  appropriations,  their  congregations  being 
now  able  and  willing  to  support  them.  As  early  as 
1764,  Coetus  resolved  to  forego  all  financial  aid  ten- 
dered by  the  Deputies  to  ministers  stationed  in  Amer- 
ica. The  resolution  was  not  fully  carried  into  effect 
then,  but  gradually  it  came  about  that  moneys  from 
Holland  were  used  for  the  traveling  expenses  only  of 
the  men  sent,  for  pastors'  widows,  and  for  invalid  min- 
isters. 

In  1791  Coetus  resolved,  inasmuch  as  the  Deputies 
had  sent  no  answer  to  their  request  for  authority  to  or- 
dain licentiates  Stock  and  Rahauser,  to  proceed  with 
their  ordination,  and  henceforth  to  examine,  license, 
and  ordain  candidates  on  the  authority  of  Coetus 
alone. 

In  1792  Coetus  resolved  to  elect  a  committee  for 
the  preparation  of  a  constitution. 

In  1793  the  new  constitution  was  submitted  and  ac- 


Ordination  of  a  Minister  in  Anisterdiira,  in  1730. 


nrn—rr^, 


^/  .  -^n 


The  Cloister  Reformed  Church  at  the  Ihigiie,  where  tlie 
Deputies  met. 


Independence.  113 

cepted.    It  contained  no  reference  to  the  Deputies,  and 
made  Coetus  an  independent  synod. 


For  sixty  years  the  church  of  Holland  had  carried 
on  the  work  of  helping  their  German  brethren  in  Amer- 
ica. The  whole  number  of  ministers  commissioned  for 
service  here  and  assisted  while  here,  amounts  to  thir- 
ty-seven, and  the  moneys  transmitted  amounted  to 
$25,880  in  our  money.  But  of  far  greater  value  before 
God  than  this  large  sum  of  money  and  these  valuable 
men  is  the  persevering  faith  and  love  displayed  by  this 
remarkable  body  of  men,  which  under  the  name  of  The 
Deputies,  wiU  go  down  to  posterity  as  a  splendid  illus- 
tration of  charity  which  "suffereth  long  and  is  kind," 
"envieth  not,"  "vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up, 
does  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her  own, 
is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil ;  rejoiceth  not  in 
iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth;  beareth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things."     i  Cor.  xiii. 

But  beside  this  brilliant  constellation  on  the  heavenly 
canopy  spread  over  the  American  Reformed  Church, 
her  gratitude  is  also  claimed  by  those  illustrious  men 
belonging  to  other  churches,  who  stimulated  her  to  in- 
creased spiritual  activity,  the  Separatists  and  the  Mys- 
tics, the  Moravians  and  the  Methodist  and  Mennonite 
Evangelists. 

In  the  science  of  botany  the  celebrated  Fritz  Mueller 
has  recorded  a  variety  of  observations  proving  that  the 
pollen  of  some  flowers  does  not  act  as  well  on  the  seed- 
germs  of  the  mother  plant  as  upon  those  of  others. 


114 TVic  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Nature  even  has  provided  ways  and  means  to  prevent 
the  pollen  from  coming  in  contact  with  its  own  seed- 
germs,  and  to  transfer  it  to  others.  This  transfer  is 
accomplished  by  the  agency  of  insects  and  winds. 
Flowers  from  seeds  fertilized  with  their  own  pollen 
generally  prove  inferior  to  those  from  seeds  fertilized 
with  pollen  coming  from  different  plants. 

Like  many  other  laws  of  nature,  this  also  applies  to 
God's  Kingdom.  Any  denomination  that  will  confine 
its  range  of  thought  and  the  maintenance  of  its  min- 
istry to  its  own  resources  exclusively,  is  likely,  in  the 
course  of  time,  to  stagnate,  to  degenerate,  and  to  con- 
tract a  sort  of  spiritual  consumption.  A  free  circula- 
tion of  air  and  of  blood  is  conducive,  yea  necessary  to 
a  healthful  life.  We  have  good  reason,  then,  to  give 
thanks  to  the  Lord  for  having  brought  to  bear  so  many 
and  such  varied  influences  upon  our  church  during  its 
formative  period,  whereby  He  made  her  what  she  is 
now,  firm  in  the  maintenance  of  principles  character- 
istic of  her  own  pecuHar  life  and  mission,  and  at  the 
same  time  willing  to  receive  new  inspirations  from  all 
and  every  one  confessing  the  Christ  come  in  the  flesh. 

THE    INDEPENDENTS. 

This  narrative  necessarily  has  dealt  mainly  with  min- 
isters in  the  Coetus,  but  the  reader's  knowledge  of  the 
early  church  would  be  incomplete  and  one-sided,  if 
the  multitude  of  those  were  passed  by  in  silence,  who 
under  the  name  of  independent  ministers  served  num- 
erous Reformed  congregations  perhaps  equally  large 


Independence.  llf> 


as  the  number  of  those  in  connection  with  the  Coetus. 
The  bulk  of  them  bore  a  more  than  doubtful  character. 
One  of  them,  Cyriacus  Spangenberg  de  Reidemeis- 
ter,  died  on  the  gallows  in  Berlin,  Pa.  He  seems  to 
have  been  a  soldier  in  Holland,  where  at  that  time  many 
Germans  in  desperate  circumstances  were  entrapped  by 
the  wily  recruiting  officer.  He  came  to  America  in 
1780  and  studied  theology  with  Boos,  independent 
minister  in  Reading,  and  repeatedly  applied  to  Coetus 
for  ordination,  but  was  rejected  as  often.  Since  1785 
he  officiated  unordained.  He  may  have  been  a  fluent 
speaker,  but  when  he  wanted  to  marry,  the  fact  leaked 
out  that  he  had  a  wife  in  Holland.  In  consequence,  he 
had  to  seek  a  new  field  of  usefulness — to  himself,  and 
three  times  he  succeeded  for  a  short  period.  A  few 
months  after  he  had  been  settled  as  paster  over  the 
Berlin  charge,  the  congregation  was  called  by  the  eld- 
ers to  a  meeting  and  Elder  Glessner  moved  his  dis- 
missal. That  so  enraged  Spangenberg  that  he  jumped 
on  him  and  stabbed  him.  He  was  arrested,  brought  to 
trial,  and  executed  six  months  later. 


Another,  /.  H.  Weickel,  when  serving  Boehm's 
church,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  preached 
on  Eccl.  ii :  13.  "Better  is  a  poor  and  wise  child,  than 
an  old  and  foolisli  king,  who  will  no  more  be  admon- 
ished." If  he  intended  to  produce  a  sensation,  he  suc- 
ceeded beyond  hope,  for  the  congregation  contained 
quite  a  large  number  of  tories,  and  he  finally  had  to 
resign. 


116  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

His  favorite  amusement  was  to  turn  his  horse  loose 
in  a  small  yard,  and  fire  his  pistols  over  his  horse's  head 
to  train  it  for  military  service,  he  said.  Finally  he  is 
said  to  have  turned  highway  robber. 


Another,  F.  W.  Vandersloot,  posed  as  a  great  man, 
because  he  had  been  "inspector"  of  the  Joachimsthal 
Gymnasium  in  Berlin,  Prussia,  and  had  preached  in 
the  "Dome,"  the  cathedral  where  the  royal  court  at- 
tended service.  But  an  inspector  there  is  no  more  than 
a  tutor,  and  the  places  of  inspectors  were  given  to 
licentiates  who  as  such  had  to  preach  probationary 
sermons  in  the  Dome  before  their  examiners  and  the 
sexton.  But  with  his  pretensions  he  so  imposed  upon 
the  farmers  in  Northampton  county  that  the  largest 
congregations  chose  him  pastor.  Finally  he  was  de- 
tected in  bigamy  and  had  to  quit. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  number  of  immoral, 
or  tramp,  ministers  of  those  times  is  by  no  means  as 
large  as  it  has  been  represented.  Of  the  forty-two 
ministers  independent  of  Coetus  known  at  this  writing 
ten  only  led  scandalous  lives.  To  this  number  twelve 
more  must  be  added,  who  originally  were  members  of 
Coetus,  but  were  suspended  from  the  ministry.  In  all 
probability,  the  number  of  independents  was  about  as 
large  as  that  of  the  Coetus  ministers,  all  of  whose 
names  are  on  record,  whilst  the  independents  frequent- 
1}'  left  no  reco'-d  behind. 


Independence.  117 


Men  like  Haegener,  Bechtel,  Guldin,  John  Peter  Muel- 
ler, Antes,  Ranch,  Brandmueller,  and,  perhaps.  Hock, 
could  not  be  classed  with  the  impostors,  although  not 
subject  to  any  eclesiastical  authority.  The  story  of  one 
such  independent  may  help  to  form  a  correct  estimate 
of  their  characters  in  general. 

JOH.   JOACHIM  ZUBLY. 

He  was  born  in  1724  in  St.  Gall,  Schlatter's  home. 
His  father  came  over  in  1736  with  a  Swiss  colony  un- 
der Pastor  Zuberbuehler.  In  those  times  quite  a  num- 
ber of  Swiss  colonies  guided  by  their  pastors  came  to 
settle  in  the  New  World,  e.  g.  Gotschy's  colony,  and 
that  of  Weiss.  Zuberbuehler's  colony  went  to  Georgia, 
where  Oglethorpe,  the  philanthropist,  was  at  that  time 
providing  a  home  for  the  London  debtors,  for  the 
French  Hugenots,  and  for  the  persecuted  Lutherans 
from  Salzburg. 

Zubly's  father  was  a  weaver  of  comparative  wealth. 
When  the  father  went  to  America,  the  son  was  left  in 
school  at  home,  and  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  was  de- 
posited to  provide  for  the  completion  of  his  studies.  By 
the  time  the  son  had  completed  his  course  in  theology, 
his  means  were  exhausted,  and  his  father,  who  by  this 
time  had  become  a  poor  man,  in  a  letter  still  preserved, 
asked  the  magistrate  of  St.  Gall  to  furnish  his  son 
with  the  means  to  come  to  America  and  "preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  Indians  and  build  up  the  Reformed 
Church,"  a  request  which  seems  to  have  been  granted. 
Young  Zubly,  however,  never  got  to  the  Indians.    Im- 


118  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

mediately  upon  his  arrival,  the  youthful  preacher  of 
twenty  years  was  called  to  the  Purysburg,  S.  C,  con- 
gregation. He  was  not  content,  however,  with  the 
comparatively  narrow  range  of  German  fellowship. 
The  excellent  education  his  father  had  provided  for 
him  enabled  him  in  a  comparatively  short  time  to  mas- 
ter the  language  of  his  new  country  and  to  form 
the  acquaintance  of  the  mqst  efficient  Christian  work- 
ers here.  Whitefield  and  his  orphans'  home,  Bethes- 
da  in  Georgia,  attracted  him  especially,  and  by  White- 
field  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  make  an  evangelistic 
tour  through  the  colonies,  such  at  Whitefield  himself 
had  made  repeatedly. 

By  sea  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  in  1752,  and  preach- 
ed for  Steiner,  not  with  his  approbation  however,  for 
Steiner  was  not  in  sympathy  with  revivalism.  Nor 
were  his  other  Reformed  brethren  just  then  so  situated 
that  communion  with  them  of  an  inspiring  character 
could  have  been  held.  It  was  the  very  year  when  the 
Coetus-split  occurred.  But  what  Zubly  did  not  find 
with  his  old  countrymen,  he  abundantly  found  with  his 
new  countrymen.  Everywhere  the  pulpits  of  the  Eng- 
lish churches  were  cheerfully  placed  at  his  disposal. 
Princeton  also  invited  him,  where  Aaron  Burr,  father 
of  the  later  vice  president,  at  that  time  presided  over 
the  college.  Later  on,  the  college  bestowed  on  Zubly 
the  title  of  D.  D.  Then  he  came  to  New  York,  and  the 
German  Reformed  congregation  there  desired  to  re- 
tain him  as  their  pastor,  but  he  felt  called  to  preach 
repentance  in  many  tongues  and  places.    On  every  day 


Independence.  119 

in  New  York  he  preached  two  or  three  times  in  Ger- 
man, EngHsh,  and  French. 

From  here  he  traveled  through  the  interior  of  Penn- 
sylvania, preaching-  in  cities  and  country  churches. 

On  his  return  home  he  finally  took  charge  of  a  con- 
gregation in  Savannah,  where  in  the  morning  he 
preached  in  French  and    in  the  evening  in    English. 

When  the  Revolution  came,  the  political  storm  car- 
ried him  away  for  some  time.  On  July  4,  1775,  he 
preached  a  sermon*  on  Is.  xi :  13.  "The  envy  also  of 
Ephraim  shall  depart,  and  the  adversaries  of  Judah 
shall  be  cut  off;  Ephraim  shall  not  envy  Judah,  and 
Judah  shall  not  vex  Ephraim."  His  subject  was  the 
jealousy  existing  then  between  the  southern  states  and 
New  England,  which  must  be  overcome  for  united  re- 
sistance and  final  deliverance. 

The  politicians  recognized  the  high  value  of  Zub- 
ly's  eloquence  and  influence;  he  was  elected  member 
of  Congress,  and  to  him  fell  the  honor  of  opening  its 
proceedings  with  prayer.  A  still  greater  honor  might 
have  been  his,  that  of  signing  the  great  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  he  might  have  become  one  of  the 
immortals  whose  names  are  read  generation  after  gen- 
eration, by  millions  and  myriads  of  men.  But  he  was 
not  politician  enough  for  that.  After  all,  his  sacred 
calling  for  him  was  of  more  weight  than  human  glory. 
He  knew  of  a  higher  liberty  than  political  independ- 
ence, a  liberty  not  fought  for  with  the  soldier's  sword. 

*Somewhat  prophetically,  for  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence came  one  year  later. 


120  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

Being  a  messenger  of  the  peace  he  would  not  advocate 
war  against  England,  and  left  Congress  in  the  spring  of 
1776,  to  return  to  pastoral  work  in  Savannah.  But 
here  his  influence  was  gone  now.  He  was  suspected 
of  secretly  corresponding  with  the  British,  was  exiled 
from  Savannah,  and  lost  his  property  by  confiscation. 
He  died  in  1781. 

Nine  of  his  sermons  in  print  are  preserved.  The 
first,  of  1794,  bears  the  title:  But  They  are  Not  Con- 
verted. 

Another,  printed  1765,  m  London,  is  entitled:  The 
True  and  the  False  Conversion,  and  the  Difference  be- 
tween Them. 

In  another,  delivered  before  the  Georgia  Legislature 
in  1775,  he  gives  a  concise  account  of  Switzerland's 
struggle  for  liberty.  His  "Evangelical  Witness" 
reached  the  fourth  edition. 

A  List  of    Ministers    Permanently    Connected 
With  the  Coetus. 

Alsentz,  Bartholomaeus,  Boehm,  Boehme,  Blumer, 
Chitara,  Dubendorf,  Dubois,  Dalliker,  Faber,  Faber, 
jun.,  Foehring,  Frankenfeld,  Gebhart,  Gobrecht,  Hoch- 
reutiner,  Hendel,  Henop,  Helffrich,  Helffenstein,  Her- 
man, Hautz,  Leidich,  Lischy,  Mann.  Nevelling, 
Pauli,  Pomp,  Otterbein,  Rahauser,  Rieger,  Runckel, 
Stapel,  Schwob,  Conr.  Steiner,  Stahlschmidt,  Stock, 
Schlatter,  Troldenier,  Tempelmann,  Weiss,  Wissler, 
Waldschmidt,  Weyberg,  Witner,  Weymer,  Wagner, 
Weber,  Wack,  Winckhaus. 


Independence.  121 


A  List   of  Ministers  not    Belonging  to   Coetus, 
Some  Suspended. 

Antes,  Brandmueller,  Berger,  (Bucher),  Boas,  Bech- 
tel,  Corminga,  Dorsius,  Decker,  Dillenberger,  Goetschi, 
Gasser,  Giese,  Goes,  Guldin,  Gueting,  Hecker,  Ingold, 
Hirzel,  J.  J.  Hock,  Kals,  Kern,  Haegener,  Lange,  Lupp, 
Loretz,  Joh.  P.  Mueller,  Peter  Mueller,  Fr.  C.  Muel- 
ler, Martin,  Michael,  Pick,  Pernisius,  Pythan,  Rauch, 
Reiss,  Ruebel,  Roth,  Rothenbuehler,  Luther,  Steiner, 
sen.,  Schnorr,  Stoy,  Straub,  Spangenberg,  Schneider, 
Vandersloot,  Willy,  Wallauer,  Weickel,  Wuerz,  Zubly, 
Zuberbuehler,  Zufall. 

Ministers  of  Coetus,  1793. 

Present :  Faber,  Hendel,  Helffrich,  Hock,  Hautz, 
Gobrecht,  Mann,  Pauli,  Rahauser,  Runckel,  Wack, 
Wagner,  Winkhaus. 

Absent :  Dalliker,  Dubendorf,  Blumer,  Gueting, 
Hermann,  Otterbein,  Pomp,  Troldenier,  Weber. 


These  lists  contain  the  names  of  fifty  German  Re- 
formed ministers  connected  with  the  Coetus,  and  fifty 
four  not  connected  with  it,  one  hundred  and  four  in  all ; 
add  to  them  six  names  omitted  because  doubtful,  and 
the  result  is  that  one  hundred  and  ten  ministers  were  la- 
boring during  this  period,  from  17 14  to  1793,  among 
the  Reformed  Germans  in  North  America,  some  of 
them  men  eminent  for  Christian  character  and  spiritual 
power,  almost  all  of  them  patiently  and  diligently 
preaching  the  Gospel  of  Christ;  administering  the  sac- 


122  The  Pioneers  of  the  Reformed  Church. 

raments  in  reverent  faith;  carefully  instructing  the 
youth;  and  privately,  as  well  as  publicly  feeding  their 
flocks  with  the  bread  that  comes  from  heaven. 

In  thus  working  for  Christ  and  the  church,  they  en- 
countered all  the  hardships  of  pioneer  life,  "being  des- 
titute, afflicted,  tormented,  of  whom  the  world  was  not 
worthy;  they  wandered  in  deserts  and  in  mountains." 
Hebr.  xi :  37,  38.  But  they  that  kept  the  faith,  now 
have  their  reward  of  exceeding  joy  before  the  throne  of 
Christ  Jesus,  in  whom  they  believed,  though  then  they 
did  not  see  him.  They  now  are  in  glory;  all  their 
agonies  are  over;  in  untroubled  peace,  with  no  one  to 
molest  them  or  make  them  afraid,  they  stand  before  the 
throne  of  the  Lamb,  in  white  garments,  shining  like  the 
stars  of  heaven  for  aye  and  aye. 

Many  thousands  and  thousands  of  immortal  souls 
were  saved  and  comforted  by  their  humble  labors; 
thousands  of  households  were  gladdened  by  their  pres- 
ence and  from  the  mean  pursuit  of  earthly  things  lifted 
up  to  a  heavenly  walk  and  conversation  ;  from  strife  and 
jealousy  to  peace  and  happiness;  from  the  bitterness  of 
mutual  reproaches  to  the  sweetness  of  mutual  forbear- 
ance. They  stood  by  the  sick  tortured  in  pain  and  re- 
morse, and  led  them  through  penitence  to  peace;  they 
stood  by  the  dying  and  whispered  the  sweet  name  of 
Jesus  into  their  ears  about  to  be  closed  forever  to  all 
earthly  sound  and  human  voice;  they  stood  by  the 
grave  and  consoled  the  widow  and  the  orphans  with  the 
promises  of  the  God  of  Love  and  the  Christ  of  the  Res- 
urrection. 


Independence.  123 


More  than  that :  They  built  the  Church.  Amid  storms 
and  tempests,  when  unbelievers  scoffed  and  men  of 
little  faith  trembled  because  of  the  shame  and  the  weak- 
ness of  this  visible  church :  they  worked  on.  Believing 
that,  as  Jesus  told  Peter,  the  gates  of  hell  should  not 
prevail  against  her  rock-built  foundations,  they  said  to 
their  own  doubting  minds.  Be  still !  and  to  their  dis- 
couraged flocks.  Keep  the  faith,  fight  the  good  fight! 
And  He  who  would  not  break  the  bruised  reed,  nor 
quench  the  smoking  flax,  Is.  xlii :  3,  He  who  intercedes 
for  weak  disciples  and  compassionately  smiles  on  de- 
spairing believers,  the  ever  glorious  Son  of  the  living 
God,  He  gave  them  the  victory. 

The  little  band  of  twenty-two  preachers  who  consti- 
tuted the  Coetus  of  1792,  in  the  course  of  one  century 
has  grown  into  eight  synods  with  twelve  hundred  min- 
isters, whilst  the  population  of  our  country  has  multi- 
plied twenty  fold  in  the  course  of  a  century,  the  Re- 
formed Church  in  the  United  States  has  multiplied 
fifty  fold,  and  at  this  very  writing  the  president  of  the 
whole  country  is  worshipping  in  one  of  her  humble 
churches. 

Glorious  things  of  thee  are  spoken, 

Zion,  city  of  our  God; 
He  whose  word  cannot  be  broken 

Formed  thee  for  His  own  abode; 
On  the  Rock  of  Ages  founded. 

What  can  shake  thy  sure  repose ; 
With  salvation's  wall  surrounded. 

Thou  may'st  smile  at  all  thy  foes. 


Dr.  J.  I.  Good's  Books 

Published  by  Daniel  Miller, 
Reading,  Pennsylvania. 


History  of  the  Reformed  Church 
in  the  United  States  (1710-1793.) 

This  book  aims  to  give  a  complete  history  of  the  origin 
of  the  German  Reformed  Church,  based  on  the  original 
records  in  Europe.  Most  of  the  dark  problems  have  be- 
come clear  through  it,  as  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  on 
the  early  history  and  the  men  who  made  it. 
Price  (postpaid)   $1.75. 

Other  books  written  or  edited  by  the 
same  Author. 

Origin   of  the   Reformed   Church   of   Germany 
(only  a  very  few  copies  remaining), $i-50 

History  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Germany. 
(this  edition  is  also  growing  small), $1-75 


Date  Due 


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